


Nocturne

by that_runneth



Series: E-Empire [2]
Category: Flynn Lives - Alternate Reality Game, Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-28 04:56:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 152,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_runneth/pseuds/that_runneth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark fanfiction series - alternate universe.</p><p>Chapter 1, 4, 5 illustrations by Nocek - nocek.tumblr.com</p><p>Chapter 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18 illustrations by Thane - varethane.deviantart.com</p><p>Chapter 8 illustration by Aimee - aomaoe.deviantart.com</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His Name is Sam Flynn

 

 

 

I.  
  
  “My name is Sam Flynn."  
  
  Silence. The crowd fell silent in an instant. He looked around – the spectators were too far away from him to see their expressions. No other command followed from the dark, orange lit ship above. The only person he could read was the black suited warrior he had encountered in the arena just a few minutes before and who stood beside him now; but the black helmet was opaque from the outside. Yet there was tension: the grab on Sam’s forearm grew stronger, when he introduced himself and it became weak right after. Now Sam felt the hand on his arm trembling. He looked at the dark suited combatant again and saw that he was shaking visibly.  
  
  The theme of the arena changed again and the platform elevated. A door opened ahead and two sentries appeared. They were similar to the ones that had captured Sam at the Arcade; red circuits flickered on the black suits and both of them carried a staff. The crowd became to stir, excited chatter started. As they got closer, one of the sentries picked up Sam’s identity disc from the floor. Suddenly the gloved hand on his arm was gone. The boy looked there and saw the helmeted combatant turning away from him, shaking his head – _denying what?_ The sentries grabbed Sam’s arms and he cried out from the fresh pain as the wound on his arm got clenched.  
  
  “Let me go!” he yelled. “You freaks!”  
  
  His disc snapped in its place and they started toward the door on the translucent wall.  
  
  Sam did not stop the yelling during the short ride in the elevator; doing that did not help his situation, yet he could not stop as he was relieved by getting away from the arena. _Just get some answers and get the hell out of here._ The walls of the elevator were transparent from the inside and he could see the whole field as they were lifted to the ship. There was a soft thud behind them and the sentries looked at each other. Sam turned his head as much as he could. His previous opponent was on his knees now in the corner, his hands grabbing his own helmet. The boy did not understand – he had never had the slightest chance to hurt him during their fight, he, Sam was the one who had gotten defeated and wounded; and yet it was his opponent who was crawling on the floor, apparently in pain.  
  
  “Hey,” told Sam. “Your friend is having problems. Don’t you want to check him out?”  
  
  _When they move, run. Will the door open if I tap on it?_ But the sentries did not let him go, they did not move, just stood next to him, staring ahead.  
  
  The doors parted and they stepped out to a large hall and crossed the room. There was another door at the other end of the hall and it opened up before them. The sentries dragged Sam inside. There were people; some of them were working behind large, oversized terminals, others were standing. The wall ahead was one big piece of glass _or whatever loony-world-material_ ; the huge window overlooked the digital field behind. Sam was shocked: the ship had left the arena and now was circling above the city – he did not remember feeling any kind of stir of movement. _That’s about running. For now._  
   
  “Let me go!” exclaimed Sam. This time the sentries obeyed and withdrew, leaving him alone in the middle of the room. “Freaks!”    
  
  A tall, dark figure was standing in front of the observation window. He wore a helmet and a black robe, his suit was lit by orange circuits. He turned away from the breathtaking view and looked at the newcomers.  
  
  “Where am I?” asked Sam. “Am I on the Grid?”  
  
  The tall figure walked closer to him, he did not reply.  
  
  “Who are you?” asked the boy. The helmet that covered the man’s face retracted suddenly and revealed a face. Sam gasped. _Dad_. Kevin Flynn. The way he last saw him, twenty years ago. Impossible.  
  
  “Dad,” he whispered. The man smiled.  
  
  “I am not your father, Sam,” he said. The boy felt a large, sudden shift. Sadness, relief at the same time. He knew now who he was facing.  
  
  “Clu,” he said.  
  
  The tall figure did not reply and Sam realized that he was not looking at him. He followed his glance and turned around. The black warrior from the arena, who followed them to the observation room, was stalking around now. His motions were shaky and uncoordinated; he seemed to be drugged. He shook his head, whined softly.  
  
  “Rinzler,” said Clu and there was a sharp edge in his voice, warning. The black suited combatant turned and looked at him; but Sam was standing right between them and despite of the opaque helmet the boy felt as their eyes locked together. One more hard shudder ran through the warrior’s body and he fell to the floor with a soft thud. The red circuits on his suit flickered for one last time and then all went out. A second later the lights came back, this time with the color of light blue. Rinzler did not move; he seemed to be unconscious.  
  
  Sam did not understand the scene. He looked at the people in the room: they looked terrified, except for Clu. For a moment Clu did not move and then he slowly walked to the lying figure. He stopped next to him, bent down and took Rinzler’s discs from their port with a quick motion. There was a grim expression on his face when he unbent. _Sadness? Regret? What’s going on here?_ Then it was gone. Clu gestured toward the sentries who jumped immediately. They picked up the warrior’s body from the floor and took him out of the observation chamber. Clu walked back to the window and stared out, with the discs in his hand. Finally he turned back to Sam. He smiled, even though this smile was different from the one he had first greeted Sam with.  
  
  “I am not your father, Sam,” he said. “But I’m very happy to see you.”  
   
II.  
  
  “The Grid.”  
  
  They were watching the city from the window of the observation chamber. Light radiated from the buildings: from the arenas, the clubs and communication towers. Hundreds of vehicles were passing on the streets, that looked like futuristic motorcycles and cars. Sam curtly nodded. He was on the Grid and everybody he had met here were programs, regardless of their similarity to real people. He turned. Clu – his father’s young self. No, not him. A digital copy of his father’s young self.  
  
  There seemed to be some kind of hesitation on the program’s side at the beginning of their conversation; as he could not decide how to treat Sam. Then it picked up. The other programs behind them were working behind their terminals and the sentries that had brought out Rinzler, did not return.  
  
  “It’s incredible,” said Sam. A proud smile appeared on the program’s face. “What happened then? What went wrong?”  
   
  “ISOs,” replied Clu. “Isomorphic Algorithms appeared on the Grid.”  
  
  “The miracle,” said Sam.  
  
  “Miracle,” repeated Clu with a bitter smile. “That’s how Flynn called them.”  
  
  “Did he create them?”  
  
  “No. They emerged from the Sea of Simulation. They weren’t exactly from anywhere.”  
  
  “And my father considered them as a miracle.”  
  
  “He was enthralled by them. A whole new life form, he said, that had the right to exist on the Grid, next to the programs he created. Profoundly naïve, unimaginably wise – those were his words about them.”  
  
  “Was he wrong about them?”  
  
  “Oh, they were surely wise. They knew exactly how to take advantage of the resources of the Grid, of Flynn’s amazement. Naivety? They were the most ignorant creatures that have appeared on the Grid. The ISOs never cared about the consequences of their appearance in the system. They were not created by Flynn and their presence caused uncertainty. They attracted gridbugs that began to tear off the structure of the Grid. Even Flynn admitted that their number were unpredictable as they just kept on emerging from the sea. The system has always had limited capacity and the endless flow of the ISOs began to overload it. They were indifferent to the problems, never played a part in our efforts to solve them. Flynn didn’t blame them. He said that there was no proof of the ISOs causing the problems, that it could be only a coincidence. When the sea got poisoned, the only concern of the ISOs was the future of their own kind. As like the system had not been overpopulated by them. As like the poisoning had not been devastating for the Grid anyway.”  
  
  “Did the bugs cause the poisoning?” asked Sam.  
  
  “No. I did it,” said Clu with a bitter smile. “I’m not proud of it. But there was no other way to stop the ISOs flowing into the system. And even though they are wiped off the face of the Grid now, the sea is still polluted. I couldn’t find any other code to stop them manifesting and emerging from the sea.”  
  
  “And you deleted the ones who had made it to the Grid.” No question this time.  
   
  “Yes. I was left alone with the decision.”  
  
  “How is that? Wasn’t my father around here most of the time?”  
  
  “He was not. Flynn gave us instructions, told us his expectations and then left for the real world, as he called it. He put me in charge to create the perfect system without providing me with the resources in order to do that. Without cleaning up the ISOs out of the way or allowing me to do that. He set me up to fail.”  
  
  “That is somehow familiar,” replied Sam. Clu looked at him questioningly, but the boy did not offer any explanation. Sam felt anger darkening his mind. Had the program been lying; it would have been so much easier. But he was telling the truth, without trying to misrepresent his actions, without offering some fake remorse. The system administrator program was cruel and ruthless – not a liar. “What did you do to him?”  
  
  “Let’s say, I took over,” said Clu with a smirk. Sam stared at him. He had gotten used to the idea of being in a computer. To the idea of talking to a program that looked like his father. To the impression of finding said program quite convincing. Yet he was ready to reach for his disc now.  
  
  “He ran away,” said the program. His voice was cold, despising. He turned to the window and pointed out at a large beam of light that seemed to be floating in the distance. “He was on the way to the portal. That’s the way out of the Grid. It uses massive power and it can’t stay open forever. It can be opened only from the outside. This is one thing you need to keep in mind too.”  
  
  _Was that a threat?_  
  
  “How much time I have left to get there?” he asked.  
  
  “Plenty, for now.”  
  
  “That’s what happened to my father? He didn’t make it?” asked Sam. He learnt about the coup. He slowly nodded when Clu finished talking.  
  
  “So he ran,” said Sam. “And still he didn’t make it there on time.”  
  
  Clu did not reply. He was staring out of the window with his arms folded behind his back. His face was impassive.  
  
  “Do you understand, why it was necessary?” he asked after a while. Sam looked at him. Suddenly he realized that this was what the program had been waiting: to be justified. To get the confirmation that he had acted according to his programming and had handled the problem the best way possible. Sam wondered if his father had ever realized that.  
  
  “You let him know about the issue, about the troubles with the ISOs. He didn’t solve them and didn’t let you to do it, even though it was contrary to your programming,” said Sam. “He told you to accept the ISOs, even though they were a risk to the system. He accepted imperfection, thus got corrupted, seeing it from your point of view. Without the coup the system would have collapsed, sooner or later. You have acted according to your programming. I don’t blame you for that.”  
  
  Clu looked at him in astonishment, his circuits made a fiery flicker. There was another sparkle and Sam looked down. The circuits on his own suit, that had been pure white, turned light neon green now. Sam did not feel any change and did not understand the swift. Clu seemed to be surprised as well.  
  
  “So,” said Sam. “He ran away. Where is he now?”  
  
  “He is hiding somewhere in the Outlands.”  
  
  “The Outlands?”  
  
  “That’s how the territory beyond the Grid is called. It is an uninhabited area, dark land with rough terrain. You would call it a desert. A program would not survive there, but he, as a User could create anything.”  
  
  “So why didn’t he create an army of programs to fight?” asked Sam.  
  
  “He fought, but… Way under his capabilities. The programs he sent against the sentries and the Black Guard… They had no chance. As if they were sent to fail. He didn’t do anything when Arjia City got demolished. As if he just…”  
  
  “Didn’t even care,” finished the line Sam. Clu shrugged.  
  
  “But he is still alive,” said Sam. “He sent a page yesterday.”  
   
  “I sent that page,” replied Clu. He chuckled and gave the boy an apologetic look. “And what was yesterday for you, that was several microcycles ago on the Grid. But yes, he is alive. His presence is embedded in the coding of the system. The Grid would survive his death, but there would be a noticeable shift. He is alive somewhere out there.”  
  
  “Since twenty years,” said Sam. “He's been sitting there and has done nothing? For getting out of here? For the programs that had been loyal to him?”  
  
  There was another flicker. Furious already, Sam looked down. The circuits on his suit were dark green now.  
  
  “Why is this happening?” he asked. Clu stepped closer to him and touched the circuit on Sam’s chest curiously.  
   
  “This is what happening to appropriated programs,” he said.  
  
  “I am not a program,” retorted Sam. “And I did not get appropriated.”  
  
  The system administrator pulled back his hand, he did not reply.  
  
  “What are we going to do now?” asked Sam. “Why did you send that page?”  
  
  “I wanted a User to get in here, obviously.”  
  
  What for? But Sam did not utter the words. He knew it anyway. _To change the game. To get a User here and convince him to take Flynn’s place as a creator. To capture a User and use him as a bait to allure Flynn out of his hideout._ Even with the system administrator’s logical capabilities, there had been no way for Clu to know who would come and what would be his reaction.  
  
  “The next step is up to you,” said Clu. Sam nodded.  
  
  “I want to see the Grid,” he said.  
   
III.  
  
  His guide during the trip was the most annoying creature he had ever met. The program’s name was Jarvis; he knew the system for sure, but he just could not stop talking. Not just when he was answering to Sam’s questions – and there were plenty of questions -, _but all the time_.  
  
  The Recognizer made its way above the city slowly. Sam was listening to the history of the buildings and watched the view. Soon he discovered how to tap the coding of the system and access the information of the sectors. After that he did not need the explanation anymore, yet he let his guide talk.  
  
  It was the work and accomplishment of centuries that he found. It was order and logic. The system used power in a most efficient way and it did not produce byproduct or waste. It had limits and it was about to reach those limits. As time had passed the system evolved and had reached a higher complexity. Sam kept on updating the codes and compress information. The system administrator had not done that before – because back in Kevin Flynn’s days the procedure had not existed nor it had been needed – Clu did not know how to do that, because Flynn had not known it when he had created his digital clone.  
  
  Later the Recognizer landed and Sam met the locals. They were not like human beings; these creatures all had specific purpose. Most of them seemed to be marveled by the encounter. Sam tried to find out if the programs were satisfied, happy or oppressed: but quickly he realized that he and they had very different conception of happiness. There was no famine on the Grid, there were no natural disasters, disease or criminals on the streets. Sam could not help but kept on pondering about his world, about the melting icecaps, the wars, the emerging chaos. The citizens of the Grid were annoyed by the security clearances and by the rude Guards; yet the whole picture put Sam’s real world in shame.  
  
  He asked Jarvis to bring him to the most popular social spot and they stopped by a club called End Of Line. The slimy owner of the club, an extravagant looking program called Castor came to lead them around. He was not happy to see the guests leaving soon after; but Sam’s intention was not to spend time at the club, but to let the word of his arrival spread. The light beam of the portal was visible from the whole Grid, but Sam wanted the programs to see him and to hear as he asked his guide to bring the Recognizer to the shore of the Sea of Simulation.  
  
  There he began to work. He found the code of the poisoning that kept the sea dirty and dangerous. The code was a block in the complex sea to prevent any life to emerge. It took time for Sam to find the programming that would be able to have the same effect after the removal of the infection. Once he was ready with his own code, he placed it in the sea. Then he took out a few drops of the digital water and cleaned it. The cleaning was contagious; once the tiny amount of pure water would return to the sea, the whole sea would clean up itself.  
  
  “Sire,” said Jarvis as he walked toward Sam. “My Master ordered me to remind you that the… special coding in the Sea of Simulation has a… certain purpose.”  
  
  Sam smiled.  
  
  “Don’t worry about that,” he replied. He let the clean drops of water fall into the sea. The impact was immediate: first the shore started to change. The black water turned pure light blue and the darkness that floated above the water, now disappeared. It was visible as the sea cleaned itself, further and further toward the open portal.  
  
  “There was no need of the poisoning anymore,” explained Sam to Jarvis who was standing next to him with jaw dropped. “There is another code now that prevents any unwanted life forms to manifest.”  
   
  He walked away from his company and sat down. There was a bigger crowd of programs close to them. They started to gather after the Recognizer landed on the shore, the curious programs came to see the Creator’s Son in work. By now the word should spread from the End Of Line too. Sam waited. There was no way for his father not to be informed about his arrival to the Grid. Soon, when the programs would realize what was happening with the sea, they would come down to the shore in a rush. In the blissful mess Sam and his father could very easily take over the Recognizer and make their way to the portal before anyone could get after them.  
  
  He waited. The celebration began. More and more programs arrived from the city. How curious, Sam thought, that Clu did not change the name of the city after the takeover; and how curious that the system administrator never once mentioned Tron during their lengthy conversation.  
   
  Sam waited and remembered. Christmas. Twenty Christmases. With his Grandparents, with the Bradleys and then alone. Getting to the school in the morning and going home in the afternoon, to an empty house, to a lunch that had been prepared and left there by an employee. It did not matter what kind of grades he got, because he could not present them to his father. His Grandparents died without knowing what happened to their son. Kevin Flynn left them – for what? For his ISOs? Sam saw their code in the sea, saw that they would flow into the system uncontrollably without the block, regardless of the capacity of the Grid. A digital frontier to reshape the human condition? Instead of bettering the real world with his inventions, Flynn would have pushed the Grid into the same misery that the real world lived in – overpopulation, starvation and depleting of the resources.  
  
  He was not there for Sam and he was not there for his digital creations. He did not come now; probably he was sitting in his hideout, letting time to pass, living just for – staying alive.  
  
  Sam leaned his forehead against his knees. Bitterness burned him from the inside. He wanted his father to know that he, Flynn was wrong, that he was wrong about everything. But there was no way to tell him, to call him to account for his actions. Yet, somebody had to pay the price for Sam’s loss.  
  
  He slept. The recharge cycle was short, but satisfying. He woke up when the first firework popped above his head. The real celebration was just about to begin. He stood up and looked around, surprised of the number of programs that gathered on the shore.  
  
  Then he noticed the change. All the circuits on his suit were glowing red now. It was not the same color that Jarvis and the guards wore, but a fiery crimson with pulsating silver currents. Jarvis, who was walking to him, stopped abruptly.  
  
  “Sire,” he mumbled. He seemed to be surprised and pleased.  
  
  “Impressive,” murmured the boy. “I’m ready to return to the city.”

 

   
IV.  
  
  They met in the observation room of the Throne Ship again. At first none of them talked: Sam saw the proud look on the program’s face and it made him hurt. The same expression he wanted to see on his father’s face – that _he saw on his father’s face now_. The program was about to tell something; but Sam did not want to hear any word of gratitude. He could not take it.  
  
  “You have created the perfect system,” said Sam, before Clu could speak. “I saw your work that would have taken centuries in the real world. It’s a pity that my father failed to recognize that, failed to say thank you. So I guess I owe you that. Thank you.”  
  
  The system administrator was standing there without a word. He did not smile anymore; his face was unreadable.  
  
  “When I return home, I’ll put the Grid on a different server. The recent one is old and does not have enough capacity anyway.”  
  
  Clu nodded, but still did not talk. He was looking at the red circuits of Sam’s suit.  
  
  “What does it mean?” asked the boy.  
  
  “It means,” said Clu, “that you don’t believe in Users anymore.”  
  
  Sam chuckled.  
  
  “I AM a User,” he said. “How could I not believe in their existence?”  
  
  “No. What it means… What are you working for?”  
  
  Sam shrugged.  
  
  “For a better world, I guess.”  
  
  Clu nodded.  
  
  “For the perfect system, here or in your world. Not for individuals, that can and will fail you. Not for Users, who promise something now and change their mind in the next nanocycle. That’s what it means.”  
  
  Sam nodded. That was it. Not just the answer to his question, but the next thing they needed to sort out. The upgrades of the City, cleaning up the sea, the red circuits on Sam’s armor – all of that was put on one hand of the balance scale. On the other hand there was only one thing: that Sam could shut down the whole system from the outside, that Clu risked everything with letting him return to his world.  
  
  “And so,” he said, “One more question.”  
  
  “What is that?”  
  
  “What happened to Tron?” asked Sam. Clu looked at him, amused.  
  
  “Oh, that,” he said.  
  
  “He fought for my father.”  
  
  “That’s right.”  
  
  “But he didn’t make it to the Outlands,” said Sam.  
  
  “Ah, right again. Two for two.”  
  
  He was mocking at the boy. Sam did not mind it – not anymore. It was so much easier now, that he gave the rein to his anger. It made him determined.  
  
  “He is Rinzler,” he said. “You reprogrammed him.”  
  
  “I was sure you’ve figured it by now,” replied Clu. He was still smiling, but it was different now, colder. There was something in his tone that warned Sam to be very careful.  
  
  “What happened to him after the disc battle?” asked Sam.  
  
  “He overcame the repurposing. That resolute loyalty toward the Users…” Clu shrugged. “That was the biggest risk about his new coding. And the reason why I’ve never sent him after Flynn. If anybody, he could’ve found him, but there was a huge chance for such an encounter to break the new programming. Considering that it was enough for him to see you, a different User for a total breakdown, I guess it was a just suspicion.”  
  
  “And now?”  
  
  “Now he is broken. Getting back to his original programming.”  
  
  “You won’t do it again?” asked Sam. Clu laughed, some of the tension eased.  
  
  “He overcame it once, he can do it again. I’m glad it happened the way it did. Believe me, he is not the kind of enemy you want to lose out of sight.”  
  
  “Does he have his memories?”  
  
  “He does.”  
  
  “Then I want to see him,” said Sam. The system administrator smiled, ice-cold.  
  
  “No.”  
   
  “All right,” replied Sam, grinning. “Then I guess I am ready to leave now.”  
  
  The smile froze on Clu’s face for a moment. _That’s it_. The decision. The risk. The risk of Sam leaving the Grid and shutting down the system to save his father. The risk of Sam getting trapped in the system and thus losing all the resources and advances that he could provide from the other side of the computer.  
  
  “Fine,” said Clu. He turned and began to walk out of the observation room. Sam followed him. The guards at the door did not stir when they walked through between them nor did the other two in the large hall after that. Another door opened up ahead and they walked in. One more door after a short corridor. _Private quarter._ There were no guards here. The room inside was dark, without any windows, illuminated by orange panels on the walls. A black counter stood close to the door with a crystal jug and chalices. Sam watched them. Those were the first entirely human articles he had seen on the Grid so far, here, in the private room of the system’s leader, who had liberated his fellow programs under a User’s suppression. Beside the counter the only furniture of the room was a large bed. A Siren lay splayed on the top of the black cover. _Oh_. Sam turned away, wondering. Then he saw Clu’s expectant look and turned back to the bed.  
  
  “Oh,” he said. It was not a Siren, it was _Tron_. He lay there with eyes closed, his circuits flickered dimly with their light blue blaze against his new suit. His armor, the helmet and his gloves were gone. The color of his suit had been changed from black to the Sirens’ white-silver. _Not a combatant anymore_. The circuits had not changed; their placement was the same that Sam had seen in the Arena. Sam looked at his face. Tron bore a slight resemblance to Alan Bradley, his original programmer, but the similarity was far less from what Sam had expected upon his father’s stories. _Well, almost thirty years now_. Since then the program had been formatted into the new Grid and had gone through countless updates; and had gotten adjusted according to his programmers’ taste. Tron was shorter than Alan and athletic build, his straight, brown hair was darker, than what his User had ever had. _So this is where the whole story gets a meaning_.  
  
  Sam looked up. Clu was standing on the other side of the bed and was watching Sam’s face with narrowed eyes. Yes, the boy thought. The system administrator could had have Tron taken to the observation room, instead he had led Sam here, so he would see the former security program in his own bed. Sam turned back to Tron. _Property_. Something, that always belonged to the ruler, this way or another. The MCP. Kevin Flynn. Clu.  
  
  “Wake him up,” said Sam. “Please.”  
  
  There was something disturbing in the glance that Clu gave him, before the program turned away. Dark victory, it was. Sam did not like it. It was his decision, not Clu’s triumph. Then another unsettling idea came to his mind: what if it was his decision _and_ Clu’s victory at the same time? _It doesn’t matter_.  
  
  When Clu came back there was a switched off disc in his hand. _One disc_. He turned it on and the disc began to glow in a white-blue light. Clu leaned forward and turned Tron on his side. Tron’s circuits gained strength after his disc clicked in its place. Clu walked to the counter and poured some drink into a chalice. Sam was standing at the bed and he was watching the wakening program. Tron was still motionless and his eyes closed, but the light of his circuits was much more distinct now. That light blue was the only diversity in the room, that was dominated by the blaze of the orange panels and the glow of Sam’s red and Clu’s orange circuits.  
  
  Clu returned. One of his gloved hands slipped under Tron’s head and he brought the glass to the program’s lips with the other. A few seconds later Clu pulled back. Tron was lying with his head turned toward him; he was blinking, whimpering sadly. Slowly he turned his face away and looked at Sam.  
   
  At first none of them said anything. Tron’s circuits made a wild flicker and he began to stir. Sam was standing there in astonishment; for that his anger flared up again. He stepped closer to the bed. Tron was trying to sit up.  
  
  “Sam Flynn,” he rumbled happily. “User.”  
  
  Sam did not reply. This time the helmet did not distort Tron’s words. _Hell, even his voice is designed to…_ The program was still struggling to get up, making those happy sounds. He was more or less in command of his arms, but his legs barely moved. Sam disintegrated his own partial gloves, reached there and touched Tron’s face. He felt the damaged coding and the low energy level. What he did not expect was the heat radiating from the skin of unearthly texture. Tron looked up. His eyes were full of hope and adoration.  
  
  “User,” he said. Sam reached for the program’s disc and took it away suddenly. Tron quivered. During the short time he had spent on the Grid, Sam had learnt that taking away a program’s disc without asking for it was impolite. Grabbing a warrior’s disc was an offense. The boy took a step back and flipped the disc. He opened the memory files and started to browse. He found quickly what he was looking for.  
  
  “I thought so,” he said as he turned back. Tron was staring at him with the same devotion and excitement. Clu was standing behind with arms folded, a sly smile on his face. Sam knew that he was amused by his, Sam’s grudge and that made him even more spiteful. He reached out and put his hand on the back of Tron’s head. His fingers tightened into a fist and Sam slowly pulled the program’s head backwards. Tron stopped rumbling.  
  
  “He messed it up,” said Sam. “He messed up his own life. He made my Grandparents’ last years miserable. He let me down. My father. But I’ve lived with it. I had no other choice, and despite of what everybody has said, somehow I did believe that he left for something important. For something, that eventually would change everything. That would worth the price. But. It looks like it was simply more important for him to romp with you here than to be with his family. And it just wasn’t enough for you to mess up our lives. You had to blow his mind, so he lost control here too. That’s why he got trapped here. He failed everybody. And not for some greater good. But because of you, you sorry excuse for a program.”  
  
  The still activated disc was dangerously close to Tron’s face, but the program did not look at it. He stared at Sam in shock, lips parted.  
  
  “I…” he said. “Flynn…”  
  
  Sam hissed. He knew that the program did not have the speaking capabilities to put up any kind of conversation, and he did not care about his excuses anyway. Slowly Tron’s eyes became glazed and Sam wondered if programs were able to cry. He saw that Tron was looking at his red circuits now. A trembling hand emerged and the wary fingers went close to the bright red lighted pattern on Sam’s chest.  
  
  “Sam Flynn,” the program whispered. Sam grabbed his hand and forced him to touch the circuits. The flow of the silver currents intensified from the tip and from the opposite charge. The effect of the touch sent waves of warmth to Sam’s stomach. Tron’s hair was soft in Sam’s hand, softer than human hair. The boy was curious if it had been his father who had made that adjustment. Sam remembered Flynn, getting on his motorbike and waving goodbye. Sam gnashed his teeth. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against the program’s, his tongue slipped in easily. Tron whined, but he could not turn his head away, because of Sam’s heavy fist in his hair. He tasted good. _Not human though_.  
  
  Sam released the program with a violent jerk and straightened himself. He switched off Tron’s disc and threw it to Clu. The system administrator caught it with a fluent motion. The sleek smile was gone.  
  
  “I want him,” said Sam with a snarl.

V.  
   
  At first Clu did not respond. The boy looked at Tron again. He felt the excited stream of energy under his own armor. There was a switch, similar to the one he had experienced when his disc had been synchronized for the first time in the armory. It felt like a bright red flash in his eyes.  
  
  That was when Tron panicked. He spun and began to crawl away from Sam. With his largely immobile legs the attempt was so hopeless that neither Sam nor Clu moved. The system administrator seemed to be entertained. He was watching Tron’s struggle with undisguised lust in his eyes and then looked at Sam. The circuits flickered wildly on the boy’s suit. Sam licked his lips. _Inexcusable_. Until that moment he had not done anything, nothing that could not be explained, nothing that could not be undone – nothing, after what Sam could have not looked into his father’s eyes. This was that; _ultimate_. No turning back, once that line was crossed.  
  
  Tron reached the other side of the bed. Clu stepped there, seized him and threw him back onto the sheets. Tron let out a confused yelp as the other program flipped him over. Clu grabbed his wrists and pinned them against the bed above Tron’s head, presenting him to Sam. Clu glanced up at the boy.  
  
  “Then do it,” he said. Tron screamed. Sam looked down at him in a glow.  
  
  “User,” whimpered the program. “Don’t…”  
  
  Sam kneeled on the bed with one leg. Tron was squirming. His wrists were trapped in Clu’s iron grip and his thighs were shaking uselessly. He did not try to beg to Clu. _A few hundred cycles must have been enough to prove that needless_. He was staring at Sam with a scared look on his face.  
   
  The boy put a hand on Tron’s thigh. The texture of the close-fitting, white and silver suit was surprisingly pleasant to touch. Sam felt the lean muscles under the garment and that reminded him of their encounter in the Arena. How easy, how gracious Tron’s victory had been. Sam grinned.  
  
  “They should see you now,” he said. Tron looked at him in confusion. He pressed his legs together with great effort. Sam pushed his hands between the program’s thighs, parting them easily. _No_ , he thought. Tron was not going to return to the Arena – he was not even going to walk freely under the dark sky of the Grid ever again. He should have stuck to the reprogramming; though Sam would have torn Rinzler apart as well for what he had seen on that identity disc.  
  
  He kneeled between the program’s legs and lay on top of him. Sam groaned from the sensation of their bodies straining against each other. The black cover under his bare hand had a silky touch, the contrast of the sheet and Tron’s outfit was striking. The flickering lights of Sam’s circuits drew red streaks on the white suit.  
  
  “Sam,” whispered Tron. The boy looked in his face closely. _Perfection_.  
  
  “What?” he asked. He pressed his lips on the program’s before Tron could have said anything. Sam grabbed his jaw to prevent him from turning his head away. Tron’s lips somehow tasted like the condensed energy Sam had been offered at the shore during the celebration. The boy closed his eyes and deepened the kiss. The program did not respond and did not try to bite as if fidelity had been fitted deeper inside his code than self-defense or the instinct to stay alive. Sam buried his fingers in Tron’s hair once more. The program was shaking under him; Sam felt the intense warmth that was coming from him, through his thick armor.  
   
  Finally the boy broke the kiss and propped himself on his elbows. He was heavily aroused. His clothed erection rubbed against Tron’s groin. The program quivered and blushed. Sam was amused by his reaction. He kissed Tron’s neck down to the collar of the light suit. His hands were on Tron’s hips; the boy tapped his coding and derezzed his suit. Sam pulled back and looked down at the stretched out, naked body under him.  
  
  “Oh, God,” he sighed. Tron’s head fell back and he let out a scream. This time it was different: full of anger and outrage, despite of all his weakness. As he snapped back Sam saw that his eyes were furious and his jaw clenched. The boy pulled back. This was how he had imagined the warriors of the Grid, when he had been lying in his bed at night, under the wallpapers that had been glowing in the dark. This feeling reminded him of those times; when he had known that everything was going to be fine, that his father would be back soon, that… _We’re always on the same team_.  
  
  Sam sat back on his heels. Tron’s head fell back onto the sheet, exhausted. His wrists were still trapped in Clu’s grip. Sam looked at the system administrator. Clu was grinning. He was enjoying himself apparently, yet he did not offer any comment. He did not try to push the boy, as if he did not really mind what Sam’s final choice would be. There was some curiosity on his face. _To see if I dare_.  
  
  Tron did not move. The fight was over - his time as a warrior was over; he had had his battles and he had lost. And then he had failed to serve the new order too. But the Grid was a clean system and it did not produce waste: this feature put him right here, for this new use. And all that misery – _for what_? Programs were not supposed to shake off their directives; human beings did that, refusing whatever was profitable for them, running into their fate, against their own good. _Why would a program do that?_ For a human, who had never deserved that loyalty? What did that tell about the human and what about the program? Sam bit down on his own lip. It tasted like Tron. He looked down and saw that his own red circuits were glowing brighter than ever. He just realized that his hands were still grabbing at the program’s naked thighs. Slowly he began to stroke the smooth skin.  
  
  His father wanted everything with the fervor of benevolent people. His company, the adoration of the public, his son, his family – and the same time he wanted the Grid, with its different rules. He wanted it all with full desire, and lost everything. Sam could do better than that. He could have everything what his father had had, and not to waste it, not to lose it. He had inherited the genial talent and fortune from his father. He could have Encom. He could have the Grid. He could have everything that his father had owned once. Everything. _If I dare_. The boy leaned ahead. Everything, that had been rightfully his – he had just never reached out to take it. _The thing about perfection is that’s unknowable_.  
  
  Sam touched Tron’s face. The program looked at him wearily. _It’s impossible, but it’s also right in front of us all the time_.  
  
  “We are not on the same team,” Sam told him. “We’ve never been.”  
   
VI.  
   
  A defiant look showed on the program’s face. Sam laughed softly and touched Tron’s lower lip with his thumb. He bent down and started to kiss the program’s neck, his hands were on Tron’s sides. His fingers were tracing along the pattern of the glimmering circuits on the program’s pale skin; then his lips followed the trail. None of his actions ignited any reaction – Tron was lying under him motionlessly. Sam lifted himself up and put his hand on his own suit. The armor fell to pixels where his hand touched it. Tron closed his eyes and turned his head away quickly.  
  
  “Look at me,” commanded Sam. Sweat covered his skin where the disintegrated suit disappeared. Tron did not comply, he was just lying there, eyes tightly shut.  
  
  “Give me his hand,” the boy said to Clu. Sam bent forward and grabbed Tron’s left hand that Clu released. Sam guided it to his own chest and forced the program to touch his sweaty skin. Tron started to tremble again, but he still did not open his eyes. Sam had his hand slid down and forced the unwilling fingers around his erection.  
  
  “You will feel it soon,” he promised. The program whined quietly.  
  
  “You don’t like it?” asked Sam. “I thought you like to do it with Users.”  
  
  He looked down and got the answer to his earlier question. _So they can cry after all_. Content as he was, Sam pushed back the program’s hand into Clu’s grip. He could not and did not even want to contain himself anymore. His fingers dug into Tron’s skin. _No breathing, no heartbeats, only this unnatural heat_. Sam slid his hand between the program’s legs; he did not find even the flicker of interest. With his knees he began to spread Tron’s legs further apart and lifted one of his thighs with his hand. He looked up in the program’s face. Tears were still streaming down on Tron’s face, but he clenched his teeth and remained silent – nothing of the screams and wails Sam wanted.  
  
  “Okay,” he said and reached deeper. His probing hand found the program’s entrance quickly. Sam pushed in two fingers forcefully and got rewarded with a choked sob. Tron arched against the bed; agony was on his face. His arms strained once more in a desperate effort to free himself. Clu, who was standing at his head slightly bent ahead, did not even stir at the attempt. Sam glanced up. Clu did not look at him; his expression was knowing and almost impassive as if he knew already that there would be no mercy. The boy turned back to Tron. The misery that contorted the program’s face gave Sam some relief – he regretted that his father would not find out what was going to happen. The digital muscles were so tight around his fingers that he could barely wriggle them. He did it anyway and Tron went very pale. Sam stopped quickly; he did not want the program to pass out. He pulled out his fingers and grabbed Tron’s hip. His other hand guided his own erection to the program’s entrance and began to push inside with small, hard thrusts.  
   
  From the surge of pleasure Sam could barely notice anything else beside the signs of his own body at first. He did not even enter the program fully, yet he had to stop in order to prevent himself from coming right away. Just when he composed himself he heard the miserable sounds that Tron uttered. Sam left one of his hands on the program’s waist and braced himself on the other. He knew that he could not cause bigger pain and keep the weakened program conscious at the same time and this thought provided some reassurance. Sam reached down and arranged Tron’s legs around his own hips. He looked down at the program with the mix of inexorable hate and lust and slowly pushed in his body fully.  
  
  “This,” he groaned breathlessly. So he had been obliged to live with his loss for _this_. Waves of pleasure pulsed along him. “You’re going to pay a hell of a price.”  
  
  Tron did not react. Seemingly it took everything he had not to fall apart and Sam did not bother to consider that if he had done anything wrong, then he had paid for it during the previous twenty years. Sam began to move. Tron’s body was unbearably tight and warm around him and the hot inner muscles tensed around his organ at each thrust. The boy tried to pick up a rhythm that he could keep up long enough. He was watching the dim blue glow of Tron’s circuits as he was moving in and out of him firmly. The program’s pale skin with that pure light was the only bright spot around – even Sam still wore his suit as he had only disintegrated some material in the front.  
  
  Sam lowered himself on his elbows without ceasing to move. It was easier for him to plunge in now; the program’s entrance somewhat adjusted to him and Sam felt the hot, liquid energy trickling out along his erection from where Tron’s body was torn inside. The boy buried his face in the program’s neck and closed his eyes. His pleasure was intensifying rapidly and it was clouding his mind; yet suddenly an uninvited thought intruded his mind: that he was doing almost exactly the same things now that his father had done long time before – except for that his actions had been welcomed, that they had been happy then. That things were never supposed to happen this way, because this dark, foreign place was meant to be the starting point of new ideas, not this beastly enjoyment, and that again: that those two had been happy here.  
  
  “Happy,” sniffed the boy as he lifted himself. He shook his head angrily to get rid of those thoughts. He braced himself on his arms once more and looked down at the face and body that had been designed so carefully and successfully to please. This was his too now. Tron’s grey eyes were half-lidded and the light of his circuits was dropping slowly. Sam was getting close; his thrusts became harder and quicker.  
  
  He saw something to alter from the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw that Clu derezzed his own gloves. The system administrator program leaned closer and took Tron’s wrist in one hand – not like the latter one had any strength to resist anymore. Clu sat on the bed one sided; his other hand touched Tron’s face almost gently. The tiny golden circuits on his hand lit up. There was a shift of charge and Tron groaned something unintelligible in a raspy voice; it sounded like pleading. Clu’s hand slid down to his neck and ghosted over his pale skin: the light blue circuits glowed brighter as their energy links connected. Clu put his hand on Tron’s chest, fingers splayed and Tron whined from the fresh pain. Sam kept on rutting without considering pausing. _So this is how they do this_.  
   
  The flow of energy between the programs was erratic for a while; then the orange light gleamed and began to stream unobstructed. Both programs trembled; a last tear rolled down on Tron’s cheek and a new expression appeared on his face – total defeat. Sam was breathless; _almost there_. Clu’s other hand released Tron’s wrists and slipped under the lying program's head. Clu bent ahead and leant his forehead against Tron’s. Suddenly every look that had seemed to be carved on the system administrator program’s face – arrogance, coldness, ruthlessness – disappeared and gave its place to vulnerability. Now the program looked terrifyingly human, startlingly _Kevin Flynn_. The golden light was glimmering. Clu moved and kissed the other program on the lips. Sam saw a flash of light and Tron tensed under him, around him unbearably. The boy cried out and came violently, his whole body was shaking. Waves of release followed each other in a streak that seemed to be never ending. Sam felt his muscles straining and his eyes clenched shut. Then the overwhelming ecstasy eased and gave place to satisfied stillness. Sam opened his eyes. Tron was shutting down: he eluded from the agony at last. His face was peaceful now. Clu’s hand was still resting on his chest; the confusingly human expression was clearing off of his face rapidly.  
  
  Sam pulled out and arranged his suit, yet he stayed there, leant over Tron. _It’s done_. He claimed his due; it was not hard at all and he was ready to take the rest. To take the company. To replace the system and start working on it – and extend it eventually, as his father had planned it, to better the world with the inventions of the Grid. Only he would not betray the idea and his companions as his father had done it.  
  
  Clu turned and looked at Sam. His face was stern and serious, with no hint of accompliceship or familiarity.  
  
  “Sam Flynn,” he said. “Your transport to the portal is waiting for you.”


	2. The New Grid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When it happened it was the blink of an eye. Clu knew that the downtime was, must have been a longer period of time, but for the denizens of the system it took only for a second. There was a flash of light on the dark sky and a sound of a digital thunder. The ship was on the ground when it occurred. Clu ordered the astonished programs back to their duties; as Throne Ship lifted up the extent of the change became clear for Clu. The size of the system multiplied – the city that had once occupied the habitable area, now stood in the middle of unbuilt, smooth terrain. Behind the barriers of the city there were the Outlands, greater than ever, along with the sea that also became visibly endless."

I.  
   
  Sometimes Clu wondered how derezzing would feel: would he feel nothing as he suspected programs did when their existence ended or would there be images, memories as the Creator had mentioned once when he had talked about the human conception of death? Usually he did not indulge himself in that kind of contemplation, but after Sam Flynn’s departure, after the light of the portal dissolved, the same thought kept on returning to him. What if he was wrong? What if he misjudged the User and the first thing Sam would do after his return to the User world would be to delete him from the system or abandon the Grid at all?  
   
  He was standing in front of the large window of the observation room of his ship, overlooking the empire that had been entrusted to him. The thought kept on coming back – yet there was no point for him to worry about it: he had made his decision when he had sent the page out of the system. He had been thinking about it long enough, and the result of his speculations had always been the same: that without taking action it was only the matter of time before the Grid would collapse. Apparently the only User who knew about the existence of the system was trapped inside it; and it had been a thousand cycles now, very long time, even from the point of view of a program. How long, Clu was thinking for cycles, would the Grid get enough power to run, how long would it take until a vital component of the system, that could be repaired only from outside, would crash? If nothing else, this should bring out Kevin Flynn from his exile, he thought. But the Creator had never emerged, had never returned to the Grid – he let them down at the end. So Clu had come to his decision and had sent the page; and made his decision again when he let Sam Flynn go.  
   
  Jarvis came with his report. The program sensed Clu’s mood and was standing behind the system administrator anxiously, his relief was obvious when he got dismissed. Clu’s attention returned to the view of the Grid. By then too much time had passed: if Sam wanted to delete him, he would have done it already. Now Clu was waiting for the next step: if the Creator’s son would indeed put the Grid on a new server. _How will it feel? Will it be like falling into a recharge cycle and waking up after that?_  
   
  When it happened it was the blink of an eye. Clu knew that the downtime was, must have been a longer period of time, but for the denizens of the system it took only for a second. There was a flash of light on the dark sky and a sound of a digital thunder. The ship was on the ground when it occurred. Clu ordered the astonished programs back to their duties; as Throne Ship lifted up the extent of the change became clear for Clu. The size of the system multiplied – the city that had once occupied the habitable area, now stood in the middle of unbuilt, smooth terrain. Behind the barriers of the city there were the Outlands, greater than ever, along with the sea that also became visibly endless.  
   
  It was some sort of satisfaction that Clu felt as he was watching the new Grid: the confidence that he had been right – that a User acknowledged that he had been right. It was intoxicating for a moment: at the same time his processors were already working with the flow of the new data, planning the placement of the new boulevards and buildings down there. The traffic was stopped for a while; then the programs started to gather in the city center. The Throne Ship was making its circles above the Grid – after that Clu ordered it back to the city where it descended and he made his announcement about the changes; the announcement that he had been thinking about since Sam’s departure and about what he had not known if he would be able to make it.  
   
  Despite of his plans and ideas Clu did not start any of the new constructions before Sam’s return. It took long: the system administrator expected the delay, but still it was hard to wait for the User – and it was hard to realize that now it was Sam with whom he had to discuss the future of the Grid: that now they were equals. He was curious to learn about Sam’s plans for the system: Clu had not known any other User except for Flynn and Sam was different from his father. They shared the same brightness and quick temper, but that was it - Clu had never seen Flynn to be indignant for long and Sam was that, furious.  
   
  Then the portal opened up with its usual blazing light, just to go out soon after. The flash repeated for a couple of times in the following few microcycles, its light altering every time. Clu realized soon that Sam was working on the portal itself. He did not estimate the scale of the changes until he got the report of Sam Flynn, present on the Grid and working around the Arcade. Clu looked at the closed portal instinctively. That was when he understood that the portal would open up from the inside too in the new system – and that if he had ever underestimated the Creator’s son, he should never make the same mistake again.  
   
  Clu left his guards outside of the Arcade and he entered the building – the same place where he had been so many times earlier, trying to guess the secrets of the place or simply to feel close again to that foreign, incalculable, compelling entity that the Creator had used to be before his corruption. It was the same Arcade and yet it was different now with all the lights, the new equipment and the presence of another User. The door opened up automatically as Clu walked inside, passing under the dark neon sign imitation.  
   
II.  
   
  The User who was working bent over a desk, turned around - there was a serious, focused expression on Sam’s face. Instead of his combat suit he wore a long black jacket with black pants, fingerless gloves and boots. His disc was attached to the port on his back; it had a bright red glow. Along with that there was only one circuit on his attire, a single, wide, red stripe on the lapel of his jacket – red with flowing silver currents as the circuits of his combat suit had been.  
   
  Clu disintegrated his helmet and they stood face to face.  
   
  “You kept your word,” he said. Sam folded his arms in front of his chest.  
   
  “There are different kinds of Users,” he replied. “Different from Kevin Flynn.”  
   
  There was a short pause; as if they were testing each other.  
   
  “The portal is closed,” said Clu. Sam nodded.  
   
  “It won’t be staying open, when it is not in use,” he replied. “In the old system it used the energy unnecessarily and the feature that the control panel was outside was a permanent risk.”  
   
  “But now you can activate it from here.”  
   
  “From here and from other places, alongside with other backups.”  
   
  “What if a program finds one of the controls, opens the portal and slips out?” asked Clu. Sam shrugged.  
   
  “They can’t activate it. Even if they manage to do it, a program can not get out,” he said. Seeing Clu’s curious expression he continued. “A program’s coding doesn’t include sufficient information for a full transformation, they would not manifest as a human being. Whatever would make it through, well, that would not be capable to survive.”  
   
  The system administrator was not sure, if he was disappointed to hear that answer. Having known Flynn’s constant worries about that security concern he had had the impression that programs could actually slip out of the system; it was strange to realize that the Creator had had fears simply for the programs’ safety.  
   
  “How long was it?” he asked. “The downtime?”  
   
  “A couple of hours. I didn’t remove the Grid until the new server room was ready. After that it was rather quick. The actual location is different now, if that means anything to you: the server is not in the Arcade anymore, but in the ENCOM building.”  
   
  Clu nodded.  
   
  “The capacity of the system is a thousand times more now. That should be plenty – if the system would ever grow bigger, that is fine too.”  
   
  “With the current population of the Grid, we will never reach that limit, even if all the programs would be redirected for the constructions,” replied Clu.  
   
  “The population will multiply, we will talk about that. But I don’t want all of them to participate in the building operations. Actually I want them to work on different projects the same way as they had done before.”  
   
  “It sounds like you have quite specific plans for the near future,” stated Clu. They were still standing facing each other; the system administrator was almost motionless. The User made a gesture with his hands here and there.  
   
  “That’s correct,” said Sam. “I made some sketches for the upcoming constructions; I will give it to you.”  
   
  “You already have the designs?”  
   
  “No, just sketches. It will be your and your System Utilities’ business to finish and give rise to it. All I ask for is that to keep the ratios of the buildings of different designations.”  
   
  Clu was looking at the User. He had not been thinking about Sam’s attitude, how he would be acting once he returned to the Grid. He did not really consider their first meeting: back then the User had faced programs that had not exactly been fond of his kind, he had fought for survival and for the chance to return his own world. He could have been inconsiderate with Clu as his father had been: but Sam appeared to be respectful.  
   
  “What about the new programs?” asked Clu.  
   
  “You will have to tell me how many of them you need and of which purpose. I will take care of the rest,” replied Sam. The system administrator nodded. Sam did not offer him to update his code and give him the capability to create new programs – and it was too early for Clu to ask the User for anything.  
   
  Sam picked up a data pad and gave it to Clu. He scrolled over the notes and images; he was surprised by the details, even though the User obviously was not an architect. Clu watched the flashing draft, the marks and dots that stood for new laboratories, libraries and entertainment centers.  
   
  “What is this project?” he asked, pointing at a large building which would stand relatively separated, farther from the buzz of the city center.  
   
  “That’s where I will stay when I’m on the Grid,” said Sam. Clu did not understand it first; programs would stay where their duties would take place. They did have private living areas, but that was rather the Creator’s choice and gift to them and not a necessity. Until Sam’s arrival Clu had been the highest ranked of all programs, still he did not have any residences or courts around the Grid. When he wanted privacy he ordered the other programs out of the deck of his ship or retired in the silence and darkness of his private quarters. At the same time he remembered Flynn, who had had his own lodges and hideouts and the thought filled him with hate and bitter memories.  
   
  “So be it,” he said and collapsed the pad. Sam remained silent. Somehow he looked older than last time, older and determined.  
   
  “Is he still out there?” asked Clu. The User glanced at him.  
   
  “He is,” he replied.  
   
  “You could find him from the outside easily.”  
   
  “I could, though it would take time. The coding of the Outlands is different, more obscured.”  
   
  “But you don’t want to do that.”  
   
  “No. I will let him come forward on his own,” said Sam.  
   
  “He hasn’t come during the past thousand cycles. Why would he come?” asked Clu.  
   
  “I will give him a reason, later. Until then he can sit out there with his ISO friend.”  
   
  The system administrator looked at Sam surprisedly.  
   
  “The ISOs are gone,” he said. Sam nodded.  
   
  “All, but one. I saw its code beside Flynn’s.”  
   
  Clu was thinking for a while and then he shrugged.  
   
  “It doesn’t make a difference for the Grid,” he said.  
   
  “Not really,” Sam agreed. There was a devious smile on his face.  
   
  “Your plans for the Grid…” said Clu.  
   
  “What about them?”  
   
  “In which direction do you want to lead it?”  
   
  “There won’t be a change, as per the daily life or even the way programs work. The real difference is… For Flynn, the system was an experiment. A giant game grid, from where he could get new ideas for his softwares. But the world doesn’t need new operation programs and video games. It needs an alternate source of energy; it needs drinking water and food and effective medicines. If any of these problems can be solved from the Grid, if the engineers and technicians of the system can come up with a good idea, then it’s already worth the effort.”  
   
  “What will be my part in that?” asked Clu with the same blank face.  
   
  “The same as it has been. The Grid is mine now, but I will have just enough to do on the other side, I won’t be here all the time. You will rule the city and you make decisions on your own when I am absent.”  
   
  The system administrator was considering Sam’s words.  
   
  “I like the idea,” he said finally. Sam nodded. "What will be your reward?”  
   
  “Hm?” Sam asked.  
   
  “What’s your benefit?”  
   
  “Well, any result that I can actually bring out of the Grid. That will be the bigger part,” said Sam with a grim smile. Clu did not like that expression.  
   
  “And what will be the smaller part?” he asked.  
   
  “I want to have Tron when I am on the Grid,” said Sam. Clu gave Sam a bleak smile that replaced the indifferent expression he had been showing since his arrival.  
   
  “He is mine,” said Clu.  
   
  “Mine too,” replied Sam, serious now.  
   
  “You had your revenge.”  
   
  “I did, and this has nothing to do with that. This is the part of the deal I am offering.”  
   
  Clu was silent; calculating. If he had been left with the impression that this User carried any similarity to his father, then it was finally gone now.  
   
  “Does that mean that you won’t maintain the system if you don’t get that?” he asked.  
   
  “The system will be taken care,” replied Sam, almost snarling. “And I’m not haggling.”  
   
  He turned away and pulled up another board. Clu was standing here for a moment and then he looked at the data pad in his hand. Sensing that their conversation ended for now, he turned and walked out of the Arcade.

 

 

 

 

  


   
III.  
   
  The constructions began a few microcycles later. There were several meetings before the actual work started: the System Utilities had been ordered to the city center.  
   
  Clu walked along the old corridors; the lights blinked at his arrival and then began to glow. The system administrator’s steps were slow and deliberate. He had not been in the building since he had taken over the control over the city – after that the old offices had been closed down, not to be used again. Clu had been considering demolishing the building, and then he had decided against it.  
   
  The System Utility programs gathered. Lacking assignments most of them had been given different tasks during the previous cycles. Maintaining the system was a more difficult job than to create it, yet it was another kind of effort, it did not require the skills of these programs. They were already excited, knowing that the upgrade would mean new constructions, expansions – and their contribution. The programs became even more electrified seeing the drafts and sketches; Clu himself had worked on Sam’s plans before presenting them to the architect programs. He was watching the rather disorderly crowd. Usually he did not allow this kind of tumult, but this time they were free to do it – no least he was very well aware of the fact that the events of this talks would spread quicker than if it would be broadcasted to the denizens of the Grid. _Let them have it._  
   
  There was a smaller group of System Utilities in the back side of the room; they were looking at the flashing plans with interest, but they did not participate in the general conversation and did not ask Clu questions as the rest of them did. The system administrator knew them well: their group had used to be more numerous. The programs that remained loyal to the Creator had been derezzed or rectified long before: these ones, the neutrals, that had not fought in the resistance but had not proven their allegiance to Clu either, had been given different sort of assignments during the cycles. They had white, blue and green circuits – no program of those colors could reach a higher rank under Clu’s reign – they were under surveillance and they caused several resistance fighters’ demise without even knowing about that. Clu knew and despised all of them just the same; he felt the stare of one of them very intensely. _Shaddox_. _A loyal friend._ With allies like Shaddox and Flynn, Tron’s fate was not surprising at all.  
   
  Clu turned toward the projected images. He did not need those thoughts now. The work was just about to begin; the plans were ready in a couple of microcycles. Clu was curious to know if Sam had meant that Flynn would step out after the beginning of the constructions; if the upgrade, the opening and closing of the portal and the appearance of the new buildings, the obvious proofs of a User’s presence would bring him forward. The system administrator ruled that option out: Sam Flynn had been walking around the city since his first arrival and by now there was not a program on the Grid who had not seen him or had not heard about him. Had the Creator been interested to see him, he would have come by now.  
   
  They were watching the first phase of the constructions from a tall cliff that towered just outside of the city. Sam Flynn stood next to Clu, whose crew stayed behind them. The programs arrived with the Recognizers and with Clu’s ship: they had no ground vehicles that could function outside of the Grid. The Creator once had had a light cycle that had run on this terrain and now Clu saw Sam’s own bike that had been upgraded from a regular light cycle. The new vehicle had the same exterior than a simple one, except for the wheels. The programs stopped for a second when Sam Flynn arrived, they were all looking at his bike.  
   
  Down there in the city vehicles arrived to a spot that had been prepared already. The System Utilities gathered around the glowing lines on the ground: a large crowd of basic programs was watching their every move. Walls began to emerge slowly as they began to write the codes of the new building. The process was slow, but continuous: the latest layers of the digital material were glowing brightly and then it faded. Some of the architect programs entered the emerging building, when the first few floors were done and they started to code the interiors.  
   
  For a while none of them spoke. Clu was watching the city as he had done the same way countless cycles ago, with Kevin Flynn and Tron on his side – his companions that had been corrupted and had betrayed the system. The system administrator looked at Sam Flynn. The User’s attention was on the view before them; satisfaction showed on his face.  
   
  “I’m almost done with the Arcade,” he said. “I’ll start writing the new programs then.”  
   
  “Fine,” said Clu. “Your residence will be ready in sixty microcycles.”  
   
  The User looked at him. His absentminded look was gone, but he remained silent, waiting.  
   
  “You will get what you want,” said Clu. There was a moment of almost palpable relief and Sam Flynn turned back to the view.  
   
  The Recognizers lifted up from the ground; they surrounded the ship as they returned to the city. Down under Sam’s light cycle started and headed toward the portal.  
   
IV.  
   
  The new projects of the system proceeded in a quick pace – the outer districts of the Grid, which were farther from the busy center and usually had been quiet and deserted now were lit up and noisy. The vehicles of the System Utilities passed on the streets every now and then and the guards were strengthened after informers’ reports of the resistance; so far there had been no incidents. On the contrary there were less security issues around the Grid: the programs were occupied again as they had been before the first completion and the system errors began to disappear due to Sam Flynn’s work from the outside.  
   
  The Throne Ship was docked on a vertical shipyard; on the top of the tower there was a designated port for the vehicle. On the lower levels there were unlit Recognizers attached to the shipyard - elevators were moving up and down carrying the crew of the vehicles and the staff of the tower. The ship was quiet too: the guards were at their posts, but the admin programs were gone from their terminals. The lights glowed with reduced intensity, pulsing softly; the ship was charging.  
   
  Clu put down the latest reports and began to walk toward his private rooms; he was proceeding since the beginning of the constructions. He stopped when the door closed and locked behind him; the silence inside was soothing. Clu put his hand on the counter and looked at the bed. Tron was lying there motionlessly, sleeping without any perception of the outer world. He could not wake up without his disc attached and that disc was locked away.  
   
  The system administrator walked there and sat down on the edge of the bed, his hand fell on the sleeping program’s ankle. The white footwear Tron had on now was different from the combat boots; these were soft and would have been no use on rough terrain. Not that it mattered: he was not going to walk again, not without the help of a programmer – the damage of his coding was too severe. When Clu examined his discs for the first time after his reversion he was surprised by the extent of the injury; he was actually surprised that the switch had not derezzed Tron on the spot. Since his reprogramming a thousand cycles before all the updates that Clu had done to his coding had affected Tron’s combat skills – and those upgrades had been on his primary disc. _Rinzler’s disc_. Tron freed himself from the reprogramming when he rejected the information of that disc, but at the same time all his combat skill upgrades had been detached, ripping off the coding of his original disc as well – he was lucky that he had any motoric function left at all.  
   
  His hand slid up on Tron’s leg: those legs from which he could not get his eyes off since his own creation. Clu was not made to indulge in those kinds of desires or to try to fulfill them: he was designed to create the perfect system. Still, he was sure that he could get Tron if he worked hard enough, if he proved himself – that was the only logical conclusion. But his efforts were merely rewarded by friendly nods and sometimes a simple smile, fueling his frustration. During the cycles he accomplished more than anyone could have expected and established his position as the most powerful program on the Grid; and yet his words fell on deaf ears. At the end he could not hold back anymore and just grabbed the unsuspecting security program when they were alone in Clu’s office. He pushed Tron against the wall and pressed his lips on the program’s. Despite of the lack of encouragement he had never expected to be refused and he pushed away Tron’s hands that strained against his chest. Clu took hold of Tron’s wrists and pressed them against the wall; at that point an indignant yelp tore out of the security program. He pushed against Clu forcefully and ran out of the office; he did not even bother to look at the system administrator or to say anything.  
   
  Their relationship grew cold after the encounter. As time passed Clu became more and more enraged: his general discontent with the Creator’s depravation was now plagued by his personal aggravation and hurt vanity. Flynn disregarded his concerns about the Grid, about the ISOs – and Tron ignored him: he did not even look in Clu’s eyes anymore after the scene in the office. He put those feelings aside, just to let them take control once Tron was lying at his feet after their fight during the coup, screaming from the fear as Clu’s disc came down on him. The horrible blow almost completely severed his left arm from his shoulder and the program shut down immediately. Clu turned quickly, looking for Flynn, but the Creator was gone already. He turned back to Tron, whose intervention had ruined Clu’s plans one more time. It made no difference: Flynn was going to be defeated anyway.  
   
  The Black Guards were chasing Flynn; if there was anything of importance it was to cut off his way to the portal. Clu had no doubts about what would happen to him if the Creator made it to the User world: but Flynn’s improvidence paid its price at last - the closing of the portal was imminent when the coup happened. When the pillar of light dissolved instead of that sudden flash that he had seen so many times when Flynn departed the system, Clu knew that he won. Nothing had happened according to his expectations, but the situation was under control. He was waiting for an army of programs to come, knowing that Flynn was capable to create them and he was more than stunned when they never arrived. The programs that fought against the Guards and the sentries were the loyal ones that had been always around. They became easy prey – that was when Clu realized that the Creator let down all of them, his faithful programs, his ISOs, the whole Grid.  
   
  The system got cleared off of the ISOs and the basics that refused to accept the new authority; and Flynn failed to show up again. By then Clu did not even hate him anymore; that ignorance made everything very clear and simple – businesslike. Just when the work was done he went to see Tron, who was kept in a cell in one of the largest strongholds, even though he was not aware of that: Clu had healed his gruesome wounds to ensure his survival, but he had left him in that unconscious standby state. The system administrator was standing above the security program, with Tron’s disc in his hand. He had not come earlier, because he wanted to take his time with this, to enjoy every moment of what was going to happen without being bothered.  
   
  Clu bent down and touched the program’s silky hair. He felt his own power, his victory at last. He straightened himself and activated the disc to launch the program; while he was doing that he clapped his eyes on the memory folder. Clu opened the files out of curiosity and began to skim through them; most of those were memories that he shared too or knew about them. Then he suddenly became more than interested: the memory files contained the location and the description of the Creator’s several hideouts – Clu almost regretted not taking a look at the disc earlier. Then other images emerged and the system administrator’s amusement gave its place to sickening disgust. Clu had Flynn’s memories from the User word, he knew that the acts of affection there were different from the ways of the Grid: but he had not thought that a program would let himself being used like that. Tron had done that, he had let Flynn to do _everything_ to him – and Clu was not sure anymore if he was more disgusted of their actions or rather furious to learn that Tron had refused him, but had given himself to Flynn. It was not very important though; it just made Clu want to hear his screams more than anytime before.  
   
  “You forgot that you were a program and not a User,” he murmured in the silence of the cell. He was about to exit the memory files when he saw another folder. That was different: even the extension of the files inside was strange, ancient. With renewing excitement Clu realized that those were documents from the first Grid. He knew about that world from Flynn’s memories and Tron had talked about it too, answering to Clu’s questions, yet it was exhilarating to see those foreign looking buildings, vehicles and programs through Tron’s eyes.  
   
  And then he stopped at a memory. He started to watch it with the same interest he had done until then, and then that feeling changed and he did not want to see it anymore. Clu closed the disc and looked down at Tron, who was lying there motionlessly. His circuits glowed dimly, his hair covered part of his face. For the very first time Clu felt sorry for him – he deactivated the disc and walked out of the cell. He was thinking about the matter until he got back to his ship and was about to put away Tron’s disc; his eyes locked on the other disc he had kept after the coup – the disc of the derezzed Rinzler program, which he had taken to examine and find out how Tron could use it. He picked up both and held them in his hands, contemplating.  
   
V.  
   
  There was a long, soft humming: Clu felt it through the slight altering of the codes of the ship – no sounds of the outer world could enter this room, from here it was impossible to tell even if the vehicle was docked or was on a course. They were almost ready to leave the shipyard, to get back to the city center.  
   
  His attention returned to the other program; he touched Tron’s hand that was resting on the program’s chest. The circuits on Tron’s hand flickered at the contact: he did not wear any gloves. The close-fitting silver-white suit emphasized the curves of his body. Clu disintegrated his own gloves and looked at the program’s face, those classic, clear features. The self-maintenance that had been running on him since his reversion and then after Sam Flynn’s visit had ended already; the damage that was left, required a programmer’s skills.  
   
  When Clu woke him up for the first time after Sam’s departure, the program was confused and faint. The system administrator took away Tron’s disc right after he opened his eyes and went to pour some energy for him. As he returned to the bed he saw that Tron’s hands were on his hips, the program was whimpering painfully. He tried to pull away from Clu, but he was forced to drink the glimmering liquid. Tron closed his eyes, his head dropped back onto the pillow. Clu went to the counter to put down the chalice – he turned back hearing the loud thud; the bed was empty.  
   
  “Never ceases to amaze me,” murmured Clu and circled the bed. Tron was on the floor, he was crawling toward the door slowly, laboriously, using his arms only as his legs were immobile. Clu was walking next to him, amused. Tron was weak, disabled and did not have his disc – and he was alone against Clu.  On the other side of the locked door there were a dozen armed sentries on the ship – and the city, full of programs that did not care about him, that would have never helped him. And he was still crawling, though his motions began to slow down as he was weakening already. Clu leaned closer to him.  
   
  “And now what, Tron?” he asked. The program braced himself on one arm – the other one lashed back as he tried to hit the system administrator. The attempt was so awkward that Clu did not even bother to stir. Yes, Tron did remember that he had been a warrior; but all the skills and the technique were gone – he knew that once he had been able to fight, but not _how_ to. Clu reached there and ran his fingers along the program’s back, playfully. Tron was whining. He pushed himself toward the door with renewed effort. Clu stepped to him and began to pick him up from the floor.  
   
  “Users,” whispered Tron. Clu smirked.  
   
  “Do you want to tell your complaints to a User?” he asked. “Now it can be arranged.”  
   
  “No. No…” Tron was shaking his head. He stopped. Clu bent down and saw that he was crying. He had never seen Tron in tears before he had met Sam; and now he was sobbing again – not that he had left anything else than tears. “I don’t want this.”  
   
  The way he was trying to put together the words reminded Clu of Rinzler and the constant issue with the speaking ability of the rectified programs.  
   
  “You could make it easier for yourself,” said Clu. “You could get back your discs. Your legs.”  
   
  Tron lifted his face and looked up at him trustingly.  
   
  “You can get back your previous programming; all you have to do is not to fight against it.”  
   
  Tron stared at him; his lips opened. But lying had never been the part of his coding – and saying the truth would have meant refusing Clu’s offer and facing the consequences. So Tron remained silent.  
   
  “Got it,” nodded Clu. He bent down and grabbed Tron; he was excited already and the squirming body in his arms just aroused him even more.  
   
  “Please,” whined Tron. Clu did not pay attention. “Friends… we were friends…”  
   
  The system administrator stopped; he grabbed Tron’s shoulders and shook the program.  
   
  “Friends?” he asked. “What kind of friend were you? Did I ever have your support? Did you ever listen to my concerns, to what I was saying? You let me down; you let me alone with decisions that needed to be made. You sided with Flynn, against me, against the collapsing system. So tell me, what sort of friend were you?”  
   
  Tron was staring at him, his expression was desperate.  
   
  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry… that I failed you.”  
   
  Clu was waiting; the other program was trying to put the words together.  
   
  “But please… Be merciful…”  
   
  “Merciful?” asked Clu with flaming anger. “I’ve been merciful. You didn’t have to suffer unnecessarily.”  
   
  “You’ve been,” said Tron meekly. “Please… be like that again… I don’t want this.”  
   
  The system administrator was looking at him. Tron knew what he was talking about; he had Rinzler’s memories the same way as Rinzler had had his before. Clu had put enough distance between Tron’s memories and Rinzler’s directive during the reprogramming – this way Rinzler could have had Tron’s experience, without being bothered by his predecessor’s moral choices; the same went for Tron regarding Rinzler’s memories. Clu was thinking; about obliging, about being better than his corrupted friends had been. He had never had to force a program to accept him – and who would not have been happy to have his attention? Only the one he really wanted, only that one was crying at his feet, begging for mercy.  
   
  Tron sensed that he was considering the plea and some relief showed on his face; the expression was close to his calm and stoic look from before the coup. This reminded Clu that he had never really had him; it had been always Rinzler, with his blind obedience, missing Tron’s real nature. Never, except for that one time, when Sam Flynn took him and Clu claimed him too – because it was unacceptable to let a User have him, to let _Kevin Flynn’s son_ have him and just to watch. That was it: Clu could never have him any other way; he could make that decision, could be merciful, but that meant giving up on Tron.  
   
  “No,” he said loudly. Tron looked at him with terror in his eyes. Clu picked him up from the floor and started to bring him back to the bed. Tron broke up, he was screaming and sobbing. He squirmed in Clu’s arms and tried to throw himself on the floor.  
   
  “Calm down,” murmured Clu. “You don’t have to do anything else than what you have done here a thousand times before.”  
   
  Tron started to cry even louder. Clu put him down on the bed; Tron was still flailing with his arms, so the system administrator took his hands and pressed them against the bedpost. The dark material melted around Tron’s wrists and encased them before becoming solid again. _That’s it._ Clu’s hands trailed down from the restraints: the Siren suit dissolved on Tron’s arms and chest, revealing the flawless skin with those blue circuits. Clu lay on the bed next to him and disintegrated his own gloves. His fingers ran along the circuits on Tron’s neck down to his stomach, followed by his lips as he tasted the program’s hot skin. It was intoxicating: the same as it had been so many times before and yet different, new. Clu slid his hand on Tron’s slim waist and leant close to kiss the program. Tron turned his head away – he was silent now; Clu assumed that as at the last time, now that he knew that he was not going to be spared he just braced himself for what was coming.  
   
  “This will hurt again, if you resist,” said Clu. Tron did not reply, his expression was tired, yet determined. “It won’t change anything if you just let it in.”  
   
  He placed small kisses on Tron’s face. The golden circuits on his hands were glowing brightly from the excitement, already trying to connect with the other program’s blue energy lines. Tron began to tremble; Clu took hold of his chin and turned his face toward him. He looked in those grey eyes – eyes with round pupils; Tron was the only program on the Grid that had human looking eyes instead of eyes with hexagonal pupils, the feature that Flynn’s programs and even Clu shared. Clu kissed him on the lips and Tron screamed into the kiss as the golden circuits on the system administrator’s hand locked with his own ones. Clu groaned from the pleasure and then, for a moment it occurred to him that Tron had been right, that there had been a short period of time at the beginning, when they had been friends, before Tron’s betrayal and before the constant yearning for him had clouded Clu’s mind.  
   
  He disintegrated more of his own attire, revealing the blazing golden circuits. The energy was flowing between them: it was perfect, intense. Clu’s hand caressed Tron’s side, his other hand was on the program’s face as he kissed Tron slowly, muffling the agonizing whimpers.  
   
  “Just give in,” murmured Clu. The powerful, golden energy lines elongated and entered the other program’s body; the returning energy was bluish, slow. Clu was shaking from the pure pleasure. Tron looked up at him, his eyes were dim.  
   
  “Flynn,” he whispered. Clu froze; this was unbelievable. Tron was lying in his arms, crippled, bound, half-unconscious from the pain – and he still managed to hurt Clu. The system administrator could not tell if Tron really confused him with the Creator or if he just wanted to ruin the moment with calling his name.  
   
  “You will regret this,” he said. Until then he had been lying next to Tron, not wanting to put his weight on the program’s body that had been still sore after Sam’s assault. Now he moved on top of him, deliberately pushing against his pelvis. Tron shrieked. Clu disintegrated the rest of his silver-white suit; then he reached behind himself, removed and put away his own disc and derezzed his own attire as well. Their exposed circuits locked together almost immediately and Clu cried out from the enjoyment.  
   
  He did not know how long their intercourse last; he shut down from the heavy pleasure at the end. When he came to his senses again he still felt the lazy contentment and relief. Tron was lying under him silently; he could not scream anymore. The pillow was wet under his head from his tears. His circuits were flickering from the violent stimulation – and he was still conscious. Clu took pity on him, tapped his coding and shut him down; then he just stayed there, lying on top of him, relishing in the sweet satisfaction.  
   
  There was another long shudder outside of the room that Clu felt through the algorithms of the ship. They were about to leave the tower. The system administrator was retracting into a brief recharge cycle. He looked at Tron once more, reached there and traced his fingers along the sleeping program’s delicate eyebrow. Sam Flynn had accused Tron with distracting the Creator – and it had been probably true, but the young User had had the same obsession on his face when he talked about the program. Clu presumed that Sam was not even aware of it.  
   
  “You do this to them,” he said softly. His hand came to rest on Tron’s shoulder. As Clu was shutting down it occurred to him that the same thing was happening to him, that it had been happening to him since hundreds of cycles. But that was not true, he decided – he, contrary to the Users, was in control of the situation.  
   
  He closed his eyes.


	3. The Next Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you think your father would’ve said about your actions today?” a female reporter asked. Sam was taking off his helmet, he turned around in the elevator, facing the journalists. He barely saw anything for the flashlights of the cameras. 
> 
> “Sam, do you have any statements to the press today?” the woman asked again. 
> 
> Do I? Do I?
> 
> He unzipped his leather jacket and let them see the letters printed on his grey T-shirt. He was standing in the blinding light of the flashes until the door of the elevator closed.

I.

 

  Counting the minutes. He was doing that for long, as he was sitting in the office chair where the laser had brought him back. It was a rapidly passing, tickling sensation, with his eyes accommodating to the darkness of the office after the lights of the Grid: and Sam told himself that it was the sudden shift and the dusty air in the basement that made his eyes burning.

 

  He was breathing slowly. Sometimes the headlights of a passing car appeared and drew lines on the brick walls; the roar of the engines was loud, gurgling – so much different from the sound of any vehicle in the system.

 

  _It was not real_. Then he thought about the departure: the neutral faces of the programs that had taken him to the portal. It had been raining then and the drops had been cold against his skin; but his attire was dry when he returned and his original clothes got replaced. There was no actual proof of his visit to the Grid; it was only him to feel the aftermath of the adventure. The fever. The determination. The lust. _It is real._

_  
_

  His attention returned to the slowly blinking monitor. This time he dismissed the automatic enquiry and the display changed, revealed the coding of the system. Sam was looking at the rows of numbers and kept on scrolling. Soon he found what he was looking for: the indicator of an Input/Output tower. There was only one number entered into the line of outgoing messages – Alan Bradley’s pager number.

 

 _That’s how he got the page_ , he thought. And he had not come; he had given the keys of the Arcade to Sam. But he would come – except if he was convinced that Sam had investigated the source of the message. The boy highlighted the number and hit enter. Then he leaned back in the chair.

 

  Soon there would be meetings, people would shout at one another and phones would start ringing; for now it was still late night. The same night; it was hard to believe that less than ten minutes had passed, since the laser had activated for the first time. Last night his biggest problems had been the minor legal and physical issues due to his jump from the ENCOM tower.

 

  “You sure have an interesting way of being disinterested,” Alan Bradley had told him just a few hours before. It felt like it had happened weeks earlier.

 

  “I am interested now, Alan,” whispered Sam and he stood up. He looked around in the dark room once more and then he went upstairs. The gaming machine slid to its place quietly and Sam carefully avoided looking at the glowing letters on the front of the plastic panel. The Arcade was silent now, the blaring music had stopped. A car approached outside; this time it slowed down and the door opened. For a moment Sam was worried to meet his old guardian, but then it was that well-known figure that appeared at the door and walked inside; Alan Bradley had nothing to do with that _thing_ on the Grid. That was what Sam told himself as the other man came closer: he was wearing his dark coat above a grey T-shirt, casual trousers and white training shoes. He had not come before – but the second page was enough to make him jump out of the bed and drive to the Arcade. Alan Bradley was looking around as he entered the building. Sam was standing at the wall, in the shadow of a machine. Alan stopped and began to examine his pager. The boy stepped ahead.

 

  “Alan,” he said quietly. The other man turned in his direction, there was surprise on his face, which got replaced by realization in the next moment.

 

  “You paged me?” he asked. Sam walked there in a slow pace, smiling.

 

  “Yeah,” he said. “I need you at Encom at 8 A.M.”

 

  Alan Bradley was staring at him. After the initial surprise he seemed to be considering, careful.

 

  “What about the board?” he asked.

 

  “You’re chairman now,” Sam replied, saying the words he should have told years earlier. He wished he had done it: so long time had been wasted while they had been waiting for someone, who had never deserved that patience. “I’m taking the company back, Alan.”

 

  He smiled: the expression was strange, unhappy. That was all he could tell, and the deed was done: Alan believed that he had sent the messages. Sam began to walk out of the Arcade; he put his hand on Alan’s shoulder as he passed him. He wanted to speak, to talk to him, to ask for his advice, but at the same time the decision he had made, what he had committed was not something he intended to discuss with Alan. The want was there and the words spilled from his lips nevertheless.

 

  “Oh, and…You were right,” he said. His old friend was staring at him with utmost confusion.

 

  “About what?” he asked.

 

_About dad, not wanting to leave us…leave me._

 

  “About everything,” Sam replied. With that he left Alan there and walked to the front door. On the left there was the control panel of the electrical appliances. Sam stopped abruptly and reached there; he turned on the exterior neon sign. On the street he turned and looked up: after a few seconds of blinking the sign lit up. _Flynn’s._ Sam had never thought of the Arcade as being his, he had never thought about the company or any other possessions that had belonged to his father as his. But it was his – he was a Flynn too.

 

  He went to his bike and started it. The sky was fading above the roofs; the sound of traffic came from the direction of the freeway.

 

II.

 

  At a gas station he got a coffee and a sandwich. There was bright sunlight by then and heavy traffic on the streets and on the freeway. It was strange for Sam to see the people everywhere, at the gas station, acting casually, looking after the daily duties – completely unaware of that other world he had seen not long before. And it was like that, casual, to lean against the stone fence outside of the mart with that plastic cup in his hand, watching the flow of cars on the street. It was not that early anymore and he could make the necessary phone calls for the morning meeting at ENCOM. Once done, Sam walked back to his bike and headed toward home.

 

  It was time to let out his dog by the time he got to the riverside apartment. The bright light hurt his eyes – there was not enough time to take a nap before the corporate meeting. He poured water and dog food for Marv and then walked outside. Sound of a passing train and honking came from the direction of the bridge, the ENCOM building towered on the other side of the water just the same as it had used to be. He had been facing that view since years, with growing frustration. It was calm for now, like every other morning, there was no sign of the upcoming changes. And for a while that would remain the same, Sam thought: there would be talks, negotiations and arguments, unnoticed for the outside world for a few days. He was the main shareholder of the company, but not the only one, and the rest of the decision makers would object to any kind of change, especially against letting go the basic members of the board. But then, they were solely interested in the profit of the company; had they been convinced about the continuation of their fat checks, there would be no opposition anymore.

 

  Marv hurried back to the house and settled back onto his pillow. Sam closed the door and took off his jacket. It would take time, he returned to his previous train of thoughts, to get the legal situation settled, but he should be able to proceed in his own work; he was already considering the technical options and possibilities. How many years got wasted, how many opportunities gone, because of his father’s irresponsibility and shortsightedness. Sam felt sick. He was about to blame it on the sandwich he had had; but he knew that there had been nothing wrong with the food. The exhaustion of the previous day, the following evening and then the night on the Grid overcame him – it had been just one day before that he had been standing on his patio, looking at the mighty office building on the other side, with a vicious smile on his face. He had been thrilled of the upcoming adventure, of the new opportunity to make fun of the greedy board, in his father’s spirit; at least that was what he had been thinking, for many years. But whatever idea Sam had had about that spirit, had been false: there was no higher purpose, fight for a greater good; it had been only a weak, distracted man, who had failed in every possible way. There was a bitter taste in his throat. Had his father let his loved ones down for the Grid; it would have been hard to accept that either, but Sam could take that. But Flynn had let down his creatures just the same, just so he could spend his time with someone else. _This_ was behind the mighty hopes and dreams.

 

  Later Sam would say that it was due to the fatigue; his legs gave up under him and he fell on his knees. He was sobbing inconsolably – he had not done that since many years, since his childhood; and it was that, because he was crying for his youthful hopes and beliefs.

 

  He stood up when he calmed down and went to the bathroom. He still had time for a shower before he had to leave.

 

III.

 

  The room went empty after the meeting. Sheets of paper lay scattered on the table; the chairs were left pushed away from the table. Voices came from outside, from behind the closed door: excited chatter and people, talking on their cell phones.

 

  “Why now?” asked Alan Bradley. Sam looked up; he was sitting at the conference table, sunk into his thoughts. He was calculating; technical details and system requirements.

 

  “What?” he asked absentmindedly. Alan was standing at the large window. He was freshly shaven and his appearance was impeccable; there was no sign of the lack of sleep. He had been aware of Sam’s upcoming announcement; he still seemed to be stunned.

 

  “Why now?” Alan repeated his question. “Why the messages and the last night’s prank? You could have made your claim yesterday and could have prevented the release without getting into trouble.”

 

  Sam laughed; he did not reply. Alan was serious.

 

  “Why are you worried?” the boy asked. “Do you think that this is just another prank?”

 

  “Look, I’m sure about your good intentions…” started Alan.

 

  “Are you?” Sam asked; now he was very serious. “Are you sure about my good intentions?”

 

  “Of course,” Alan replied with mild surprise on his face. “But what made you change your mind all of a sudden?”

 

  Sam was thinking; considering. He did not owe anybody an explanation; except for this man.

 

  “I am ready now,” he said. Alan took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

 

  “You were not ready yesterday,” he said. “But you are ready now?”

 

  “Exactly,” Sam replied. He stood up and walked to the window. “Will you be able to handle this?”

 

  “I will,” Alan said without hesitation. “It will be hard though. This company employs the brightest software engineers of the West Coast. You know that. But this doesn’t change the fact that the major part of ENCOM’s revenue comes from the sale of the repeatedly upgraded versions of OS-12. That product was meant to be free. Reinstating me means that the software will be available online for free soon, legally this time, and that the stores will be selling it for manufacturing price. The financial loss will be devastating.”

 

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “They will get their money.”

 

  Alan looked at him inquisitively.

 

  “You seem to have specific plans about the near future,” he said. “We have to talk about that.”

 

  “We will, soon. I need a couple of days before that. You’ll be busy anyway, with all the legal procedures and the transition. By the time you are set, I’ll be ready as well.”

 

  Alan nodded. There was something else, Sam could tell that.

 

  “Sam… Does this have anything to do with Flynn?” Alan asked. Sam clouded up.

 

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

 

  “Is he behind this? Is this some sort of a plot to set the stage for his return? Did he contact you?”

 

  Sam looked at his old friend with sincere astonishment. There was hope on Alan Bradley’s face and the boy felt aggravation and sorry at the same time.

 

  “No,” he said. “He didn’t try to find me.”

 

  He said the words slowly, deliberately. Alan nodded.

 

  “I’m leaving now,” Sam said. “I need to get some rest.”

 

  They said good bye and the boy walked out, through the crowd of excited people.

 

IV.

 

  It was dark in his apartment when Sam woke up. His sleep was restful, without any dreams. He turned on his back under the blanket, blinked. He picked up his phone and checked it: there were a few messages, from friends and from Alan Bradley. Alan was asking if Sam wanted to join them for dinner – Lora Bradley had come home in the afternoon. He sent a polite refusal; he wanted to be alone.

 

  So different, he thought, the chain of events was so different from anything he had ever expected. He had imagined it so many times, his father’s return: the dream had been glorious first and then, as time had passed and Sam had grown up, he had only hoped to get his father back alive. This – he had never considered this option; it had not been an option. After so many years now he knew that Flynn would come home, but he had no idea how it would be. Twenty years: Sam still had to get used to the timekeeping of the Grid, yet he could make the calculation already. It was about a thousand years: a human’s psyche was not designed to take or survive anything like that. Yes, Flynn was alive – but was he aware of his own existence, was he the same person he had been before? Sam had serious doubts about that. And this was something that could not be fixed; nobody could give back the lost time. All that, because of utmost negligence, all that, because…

 

  “Because you loved him more than you loved your own family,” Sam whispered under the blanket. Those mistakes needed to be corrected: Flynn had to return home, ENCOM needed new directions and the system had to start functioning again. The first issue was only the question of time: now, that he had found the Grid, Sam was confident that Flynn would step ahead, sooner or later. Not that Sam needed him: he never wanted to see his father again, not after the night in the system.  The company was going to be under capable management, especially since Alan Bradley was aware of the traps and dead ends of the job and would avoid the bad advices this time. Had ENCOM been profitable after Flynn’s disappearance, he would have never lost his position. But it was not Alan’s duty to keep the company profitable – Sam wanted him to put things back on the right track and keep it like that, faithful to the old vision. And the profit – the profit was not supposed to come from the sale of the overpriced softwares, which would be outdated in six months anyway. The system had way greater potential than that and it could answer the purpose now, that it would not be endangered by system errors, viruses and the carelessness of its User.

 

    Now he understood the enthusiastic tirades about the digital frontier and the sensational innovations Flynn had been talking all the time, but had never proven any.

 

  “He was talking about genetic algorithms, quantum teleportation, he said he was about to change everything,” Alan Bradley had told when he had recalled his conversation with Kevin Flynn before his disappearance. “Science, medicine, religion.”

 

  Sam knew that his father had been talking about his beloved ISOs, that he had been praising their alleged mightiness. It was like that with everything that Flynn had done, letting down his family for his damned lover, forsaking his creatures for some viruses, but still, the system did have that potential, it was capable to make a difference in the world.

 

  He took his phone in his hand and looked at the screen. It was something one had to experience, being in the system, otherwise it would have been impossible to explain or convince anybody about that reality. Even he, who had seen it with his own eyes, was unsure, full of questions. Was the Grid exceptional with its sentient beings, or was it the same with every single system, every appliances with programs inside? It did not seem to be believable: computers were machines, following orders, doing nothing else. The Grid was self-developing and occasionally deviating from the directions – that was a feature which did not belong to simple equipments; that was revealing a system of artificial intelligence. _When did that happen and why? What triggered the change? Did that has anything to do with the machinations of the old Master Control Program?_

Sam went downstairs in the dark. On the first floor he turned the lights on and picked up a bottle of water. It was quiet for now: one day later. The equivalent of two months had passed on the Grid since his visit; it was hard even to imagine that. It would have been impossible to efficiently manage it from the outside, and this had been proven by Flynn’s miserable failure. There had to be someone in charge, who had had the insight and authority to execute the orders. Sam leaned against the sink. It crossed his mind to delete Clu from the system, after he returned to the Arcade, for playing such a role in Flynn’s misfortune and for forcing him, Sam to prove his intentions the way he had done it. But it was self-pretense: it had been somebody else who had caused Flynn’s fall; and it would have been a lie to claim that Clu had forced him. Clu was inconvenient, because he saw through things and even people, and drew his conclusions very quickly and rationally – yet, he just did what needed to be done, however with the frustration of thousand cycles of delay. And there was one more thing: Clu was too similar to Flynn, they shared too many personality traits. Sam had no intention to harm his father – and had no desire to talk to him ever again. Rather surprisingly whatever Clu had told him on the Grid and the way he had done it, had set things right for Sam. It was not pleasant, but it was the truth, eventually, for what Sam had been waiting for so long.

 

  He reached for his jacket; Marv understood the sign and jumped excitedly.

 

  “Come on, old pal,” Sam said. “Let’s go out for a walk.”

 

V.

 

  The new server room was on the same floor as ENCOM's own, enormous data center. It was large and had no windows; it had one entrance from a smaller storage room. Originally it had been designed as office space, but it was too dark and secluded for that use. The mechanics finished with installing the new insulation system, which ensured more than protection from a possible fire or flooding: it made sure that nobody could enter any other way but through the first office. Both doors of the two rooms had been replaced by security doors; just when that was done, did Sam bring in the servers and started to install the power lines, along with the secondary power generator. He was glad that he had so many things to do – he seriously needed the distraction.

 

  There was a certain level of anxiety he felt since his return from the Grid. It had nothing to do with the new responsibilities and obligations: it was a gut-clenching anticipation, before the last stage of a long wait. With that, the endless meetings with corporate attorneys and with the planning of the system’s replacement he thought that he had his hands full; and that was when the dreams started. In his dreams he was very calm and focused, free from the pondering that shaded his days. It was dark, except for the red light of the false circuitry on his combat suit – and that faint blue glow which was pulsating frantically under him. Sam felt hot as his fingertips traced that intricate pattern on the flawless skin, which was warm against his lips, warmer than human flesh would be. The sounds that came from the creature that was trashing under him were not the sounds of passion, but of terror and pleading. But even in his dream Sam knew that he had every right to do as he wished – and he did so. With his knees Sam forced the program’s legs open and pinned him down with his weight. His erection began to feel uncomfortable in his pants; he ignored that for now. He reached down, grabbed the program’s hair and pulled his head back, revealing a face which was alien and very much familiar at the same time. Sam leaned ahead for a kiss – and he came, waking up alone is his bed, panting under the blanket, his whole body covered by sweat.

 

  Other times he went further in his dream; he tore off the tight fitting suit of the program’s body, without paying any attention to the incoherent pleas and the tears. On the contrary, the weak resistance fired up his lust; that was a new feeling, a strange, but exciting experience. Everything was odd about his dream, the lights, the touch of the sheets under his palm and his attire against his skin, but this was the strangest, this dark, arousing sensation; and the feeling of his total control of the situation. He took his own erection in his hand, guided it to the program’s entrance and forced his way inside, groaning from the pleasure. He had to do something about that, he thought as he was lying in the darkness, still breathing heavily, his muscles slackened.

 

  “So, how is it going, young man?” a friend of the Bradleys’ asked him. It was after dinner; Sam was invited to Alan and Lora Bradley’s house – it would have been hard to refuse, as they had not met since the board meeting. Alan had been busy at the office and Sam had been out of sight while working on the new server room.

 

  “Can’t complain,” Sam replied. There were many people around. _Success makes you popular._ But that was a mean thought: the Bradleys had numerous friends, even if not ‘important’ or ‘powerful’ people. They were sitting in the living room with their drinks; on the sofa next to Sam there was Lora Bradley. She wore a dark blue dress; a glass of red wine was in her hand.

 

  “Thanks for the dinner,” the boy said.

 

  “Thanks for the delivery service,” she replied with a bright smile. Cooking was one of the few things which were not her forte, Sam knew that well.

 

  “I’m really happy for you,” Lora said. “We both are.”

 

  Sam nodded. It was the last silent evening before the press conference at ENCOM the next day. He saw that Lora was looking at Alan Bradley who was having a conversation with another guest.

 

  “He’ll be doing fine,” he said. She turned back to him, with a sudden, serious look on her face.

 

  “He will,” she replied. “But what needs to be done at the company, that is not one man’s job.”

 

  Sam glanced at Lora. Always in the background, just as Alan Bradley, she rarely exposed her personal opinion; but now she seemed to be anxious, protective.

 

  “Nobody will expect him to accomplish that alone,” Sam replied. She stared at him curiously.

 

  “Why the Arcade?” she asked. For a short moment Sam had hard time keeping a blank face. “Why did you send the pages from there?”

 

  He smiled. A woman laughed at some remark, on the other side of the smoking table.

 

  “I’m actually thinking of going there too,” said Lora.

 

  “To the Arcade?”

 

  “You know… I’ve never gone back,” she said with a smile, but the expression was awkward, almost apologizing.

 

  “Well,” the boy said, “you are more than welcome to do so.”

 

  He left before the other guests and walked to his bike which was parked next to the other vehicles. The engine started and the Ducati headed toward the old downtown: there was one more thing Sam had to do that night.

 

VI.

 

  Flynn’s old office under the Arcade was dark and empty. The laser, along with the other appliances and the handwritten notes was gone: an independent security company had transported everything to the ENCOM building two days earlier. There was only the computer left; the new server room was ready, but Sam delayed shutting down the old one.

 

_What if it won’t come back?_

 

  He put his padded bag on the empty table and stepped to the terminal. With the laser gone it was the coding of the system that showed up immediately when he touched the screen. Sam hesitated. He had been thinking about building the new server room here, in the old office – but it was impossible. Of course he could have brought in the new equipment; but could never secure the place sufficiently enough. The place was located in the middle of a deserted neighborhood: had he brought the new appliances there, and visited nightly, especially considering the increased media interest, a burglary was pretty much coming in his way.

 

_What if I kill him? What if I kill them?_

 

  Sam had seen his father’s coding in the system; a difficult, long code, outside of the orderly map of the Grid. It was smudgy; it was impossible to tell where the code itself started and where the lines of the surrounding, foreign area ended. It was out of consideration to attempt and withdraw it, using the laser – Sam was confident that _that_ would kill Flynn. There was no other way, he had to make his father to enter the Grid and use the portal on his own in order to return to the real world, if it was even possible for him. But that was going to take time, to find his father from the inside, and Sam had no way of knowing how much time the old computer was left with. As a programmer he knew that he should be able to shut down the system and restart it at the new place; still, the old machine had not been stopped since twenty years – it was impossible to tell if it would indeed happen. There were backup files and saved data, but the boy suspected that it was not going to be the same, not with this system: that that information might contain the description of the actual programs, of Flynn in the system, but not their personalities.

 

_People don’t have saved version that could be launched if they get sick or get hit by a car._

 

  “Please…” Sam whispered while the system was shutting down. It last for a few minutes and then the monitor went dark. He removed the cover panel, carefully took the hard drive and placed it in his bag.

 

  He was driving slowly on the empty streets. It was clear, with mild wind and stars on the sky. The evening traffic intensified as he reached the new city center. He left his bike in the underground parking lot of the company and took the elevator to the server room. Sam tried to stay focused as he walked along the corridor. He had a key and a chip card to the office and another set of keys to the new server room. There was the old laser installed already and Flynn’s notes in boxes on the floor. The hard drive clicked in its place and the boy turned on the power. The system started with a low buzz; after a few minutes the coding of the Grid appeared on the screen. Sam sighed and sat down slowly.

 

VII.

 

  This morning everything was different: there were satellite vans around the ENCOM building and many people, standing around, talking on cell phones. The news had gone out earlier the day and the media frenzy had begun. ENCOM was one of the large tech companies, supposedly boring for the public – but during the years there had always been episodes that had kept the interest alive: first the investigation that had followed Edward Dillinger’s fall, then Kevin Flynn’s popular flings and charities, his disappearance, and then Sam’s rampant behavior – that was plenty to feed on. People liked this unusual pairing, success, combined with nonconformism: in these days, when the trust in the governments and the authorities had faded, even Edward Dillinger’s person and his actions became popular in a certain circle, as a symbol of rebellion and free speech. Flynn would have found that amusing, Sam thought, but it was not baseless, not entirely.

 

  And there was another ring of fans, programmers, engineers, enthusiastic students and professors of programming, geeks, or simple people that were attracted by the mystery. They were connected through the internet, some even met in person in their clubs; they had their own websites where they published their theories and the results of their investigations. They were excited now as well, their credo popped up here and there even on major news portals.

 

  _Flynn lives._

 

  Just an hour earlier Sam was preparing to leave for his first real workday after the installation. He was thinking about what to wear; the seemingly careless, but otherwise really expensive business casual attire of the young software engineer team did not feel appropriate for him. Sam threw his old jeans and jacket on his bed as he was getting ready; he was searching for a T-shirt and he pulled out a grey one with white print from the drawer.

 

  FLYNN LIVES.

 

  He was staring at the letters, water drops fell on the material from his wet hair. A funny little gang of computer freaks, with their own merchandise and gadgets. Sure. The deep end was less obvious; that these people had never given up on the good old ENCOM traditions, started by Edward Dillinger, that they some of them were linked to the growing Anonymous – and that is had been founded by an old ENCOM employee, Roy Kleinberg; and that Alan Bradley knew about it. Sam had found this out a few years earlier, when he had involuntarily overheard a phone conversation between the two men in Alan’s house. _They believed in him too._ Sam dropped the T-shirt on the sheets.

 

  “Just one question!”

 

  “How do you feel this morning?”

 

  “Please, wait!”

 

  The reporters surrounded him as he parked his bike.

 

  “Hey, step aside!” one of the security guards said. “Step aside!”

 

  “How is it going, fellas?” Sam asked as the security people escorted him to the elevator. The helmet was still on his head. Flashes blinked. Sam and the two guards entered the cabin.

 

  “Have a good day,” he said as he got out of the crowd. Then a question suddenly hit him.

 

  “What do you think your father would’ve said about your actions today?” a female reporter asked. Sam was taking off his helmet, he turned around in the elevator, facing the journalists. He barely saw anything for the flashlights of the cameras.

 

  “Sam, do you have any statements to the press today?” the woman asked again.

 

_Do I? Do I?_

 

  He unzipped his leather jacket and let them see the letters printed on his grey T-shirt. He was standing in the blinding light of the flashes until the door of the elevator closed.

 

VIII.

  The office was large and bright with sunlight. They met there shortly after lunch; before Alan’s afternoon meetings and conference calls. Sam sat down: from across the desk Alan Bradley was looking at him with an inquisitive expression on his face.

 

  “What?” Sam asked. He could not suppress a cheerful grin.

 

  “I…” Alan started, then he fell silent.

 

  “You didn’t believe that I indeed meant this,” the boy said.

 

  “Yes,” his old friend admitted after a second of hesitation.

 

  “It’s okay,” Sam said and put a file folder on the desk.

 

  “What is this?” Alan asked. He put on his reading glasses and opened the folder. He was reading for a few minutes and then he looked at Sam. “I don’t understand.”

 

  “You’ve never gotten paid for those old programs you wrote for the company.”

 

  “Yes… But that was thirty years ago, Sam,” Alan said, still surprised. “Things were different back then. And these programs,” he gestured toward the paper, “These programs were deleted, when the first ENCOM server crashed in 1986.”

 

  “Really?” Sam asked.

 

  “You can’t remember, but that was sort of a big deal for us. Still, that was long time ago. I don’t even know from where you got this list. You… the company doesn’t have to pay me for that.”

 

  “I see,” Sam said. “Well, I didn’t know that. I think that doesn’t make a difference and you should sign that paper.”

 

  Alan laughed.

 

  “Should I sell you the rights of my old programs which were deleted twenty five years ago anyway?” he asked. “Why?”

 

  “Because, as I said, you have not been paid for your work. And because the company can afford it.”

 

  “It’s not like I actually need this money. Your offer is generous, but…” Alan looked at Sam again. The boy remained silent. “Well, if this makes you happy…”

 

  “Yes,” Sam said. “It does.”

 

  Alan glanced at him suspiciously, as if he was trying to read Sam’s face. Then he just picked up a pen from his desk, signed the sheet and gave it back to the boy. Sam took it; he did not offer any comment.

 

  “So,” Alan said. “How do you feel now?”

 

  “It’s alright. I will need to get another place to stay.”

 

  “Because of the media? Well, yes. People are curious to see that happens next.”

 

  “Like there is anything that should inevitably happen now,” Sam grinned. He stood up. Alan followed suit.

 

  “I wish you would share your ideas with me,” he said.

 

  “I will,” Sam replied. He looked at the signed papers in his hand and smiled again. “See you tomorrow.”

 

  He walked toward the elevator. On the way he met a small group of people that were coming back from lunch; the members of the software engineer team. They were chatting and laughing loudly, and went quiet suddenly, when they saw Sam. After the initial surprise they all smiled, greeted him and began to ask questions – all, but one. The young man with dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses was standing aside silently, arms crossed.

 

  “Hey, Junior,” Sam said. The young man nodded.

 

  “Flynn,” he replied. They did not really know each other and had barely talked before, but Ed Dillinger Jr. knew very well that Sam did not like to be called like that. The noisy group walked away toward the offices and Sam went to the elevator.

 

IX.

 

  It was strangely welcoming, the darkness and the silence of the Arcade on the Grid. He was standing there for a while after the transmission, then he looked at his hands. He was wearing his combat suit which he had been given in the Armory during his first visit.

 

  Sam walked out to the street. Everything seemed to be the same, the buildings, the sounds, the behavior of the programs. Instead of going for a longer walk or getting into a vehicle for a tour Sam went back in the office. The process of the transmission needed to be fixed at the first place – he did not even want to start anything else before taking care of that.

 

  It took a few hours for him to reprogram the laser and the portal; after that it was not necessary anymore for the portal to stay open while he was in the system. He did not actually need the portal anymore: with a handheld device which operated as a remote control he could open the connection anywhere. Sam created several of those tiny appliances and placed them all around the city, hidden and irresponsible for a program, but easily accessible for him. As a security back up plan he programmed the laser to activate anyway if he was on the Grid and did not initiate connection for a certain period of time. He made all those adjustments with grief in his heart: it was so easy – why had Flynn failed to do it, even though it had been so crucial? It occurred to him that he was working with an advanced knowledge, that he had been taught many things that had not existed in his father’s days; but still, it was bad, it was maddening.

 

  Just when the new connection was set he took a look around the new Grid and saw how the extended memory capacity appeared from the inside of the system. It was large now; it was enormous, empty lands waiting to be built in, to be populated.

 

  He returned to the office to put down the sketches for the new buildings. Before starting he changed his attire: he was not entirely sure about the process, not yet, but then he simply put his hand on his suit and concentrated. The clothes changed on their own, to a long jacket, pants, boots and a pair of fingerless gloves – it was rather similar to his usual outwear. Once that was done, Sam sat down at the desk. It was a reassuring feeling, to work on the Grid, where time passed so slowly. On the other hand, he expected Clu to come: the system administrator program must have seen the changes around the Grid and the flashing light of the portal; he would come. Of course Sam could have gone to meet him; but the office was his ground and he preferred to have their next conversation to be there.

 

  Now, that he was working there, Sam was not fighting anymore to suppress those images and fantasies which kept on filling his mind. The lines appeared on the worksheet one by one; he did concentrate on the technical details and the numbers – but at the same time he was far away. He was working there until the door opened and Clu walked in. Sam stood up and turned around.

 

X.

 

  The sight of the new Grid was breathtaking from the window: the lights of the ongoing constructions under the ever-stormy sky, the busy streets and squares of the old town, the boulevards with all the vehicles which were sparkling little dots from the distance; above jets and Recognizers were hovering. Beyond that there were the dark plains and shades of the Outlands.

 

  Sam leaned closer to the full wall window. That dark desert, Flynn’s home – his, and the ISO’s. It had taken time for Sam to translate that difficult, long code that had appeared next to Flynn’s; just after seeing his father’s notes he had recognized the unique algorithm with that disturbing signal of human-looking DNA. Contrary to the former system User, the ISO was moving, sometimes entered the city even. Sam could have terminated it with a keystroke; he did not do it. The ISO could serve Flynn’s survival – this fact and that unexplained variation of its coding stopped his hand.

 

  He was standing at the window of his new residence: the room was on the top floor of a tall building which had been built farther from the city center. It had been finished not long before: on the lower levels programs were working on the interiors of the concert halls, libraries, gaming and training centers. The surroundings were going to be populated in the upcoming cycles, by new workshops, laboratories and entertainment centers.

 

  “It makes them excited,” Clu said during their earlier conversation.

 

  “In a good way?” Sam asked absently but curiously. It happened rarely that the system administrator offered an unbidden remark.

 

  “Very much. The new tasks distract them and the word had gone out already about the new factories and research.”

 

  Sam laughed.

 

  “They want to prove themselves?” he asked. It was one of the things he had not had the time, to familiarize himself with the local society. He only heard about their reactions and tendencies from Clu.

 

  “Exactly,” Clu replied.

 

  Sam blinked. One week had passed since he first entered the Grid. Since then he had taken back the company and replaced the system. But those were only the visible changes; the most important courses took place somewhere else.

 

  “Do you see me, Dad?” he whispered. There came no answer: the city was silent behind the thick panel of the window.

 

  He turned around. The spacious room was empty for now, except for a large bed at the wall. The space was lit by a few wine-colored blocks in the wall and by the city lights that came in through the window. The floor was even and dark grey; Tron was lying in the middle, where the guards had left him earlier. He was curled up on his side silently, his face turned away, trying to stay unnoticed. Sam walked there slowly. They were alone now in the room; the program curled up even more as the boy was approaching. Sam looked down at him, at the white-silver suit that did not leave too much to the imagination. How long time, Sam was thinking, how many centuries of dark fantasies had made Clu to do that, after one single failure – maybe his, Sam’s arrival and all that followed had just caused things happen quicker than they were going to happen anyway. The thought reminded him of that Clu had had no particular reason to share his property – and if he had done so, then he had had very good reasons; like to keep Sam under control. It was something to keep in mind… but not now, that he was going to have what he had been craving for so badly.

 

  The port on the program’s back was empty; Sam was looking at that as the program still did not turn. Sam nudged him lightly with the tip of his boot. Tron flinched and looked up warily. The boy bit his lip: of course Sam remembered that he was beautiful, yet he was different now, and appeared to be seriously traumatized. Sam knew that he did not have much to do with that; the equivalent of a year had passed on the Grid since their only encounter. He was about to make that up anyway. He crouched down. Tron was silent; his eyes were desperate and full of pleading. Slowly, laboriously he lifted one arm and reached out toward Sam. The boy looked at him with an amused smile. It was entertaining to see that the program was still hoping, when he, Sam was only wondering if what was coming would be as good as it had been for the first time. He grabbed Tron’s wrist.

 

  “What do you want?” he asked. “You thought that you could mess up everything and then just walk away?”

 

  “No…” whispered Tron; that just made the boy even more excited. He felt that familiar heat radiating from the program’s body and felt the lust clouding his mind. He looked at Tron’s hand – most programs lacked all the details and for that they did not have convincingly human looking hands under their gloves. Tron’s hand was perfectly finished with long, elegant fingers; Sam could not help, but leaned closer and began to kiss the tip of those fingers. Tron tried to pull away – Sam gave him a push and turned him on his back on the floor.

 

  “Sam… Sam…” Tron stuttered. The boy looked back at the bed over his shoulder; he did not have any objections against doing it on the floor, but this was his first real night on the Grid and that bed needed to be inaugurated. He grinned. The program saw the look and uttered a sharp cry.

 

  “Not that…” he whined. “Sam… Not that again.”

 

  Just then did Sam realize that Tron did not know about the agreement between him and Clu. He could not stop grinning. The hand in his grip was weak and those legs were lying on the floor motionlessly. Sam pushed his hand under the program’s thighs and the other one under his waist; he lifted him up easily. It was something he could not do in the real world, yet here strength was not about power or muscles, but about coding – he was a User against a program with shattered codes. Tron’s other arm, which was not pressed to Sam’s body shot out in a futile attempt to grab and get hold on something; but the room was bare and empty. Sam walked to the bed with the helpless, shaking program in his arms. Tron kept on whispering the boy’s name – like Sam did not have a massive hard-on already.

 

  He was about to put down Tron on the sheets, when the program wrapped his arms around Sam’s neck suddenly. The boy did not understand it; then he realized that it was the reaction of the beaten fighter in the boxing ring, trying to avoid further beating. Sam could have pulled out of that hold easily – he could have broken those arms effortlessly, for the matter of fact. Instead of that he put Tron down and began to kiss his neck. Tron whimpered and released him immediately. Sam chuckled.

 

  “Not so fast,” he said. He took off his jacket, tossed it away and climbed on the bed. The program was crawling away; his circuitry was almost white from the fear. Sam took his wrists, pinned him down and bent down to kiss him. Tron turned his face away.

 

  “I…” he started. Sam grabbed his chin.

 

  “It’s your fault,” he said and kissed Tron on the lips. Now, that there was no reason to hurry, he wanted to make it longer and slower, but even the taste of that kiss reminded his body of the previous experience and he could not ignore his erection any longer. He knelt up between Tron’s widely spread legs and began to unbutton his fly with impatient fingers.

 

  “Fuck,” he mumbled. He was almost done when he realized that what he was doing was completely needless. “What am I doing…”

 

  The program was fleeing in the second when Sam was off of him. The boy gripped his thighs and pulled him back. His own clothes were falling away now; Tron uttered a terrified, quiet groan and covered his face with his hands. Sam did not know why he kept doing that; other than the body hair that programs did not have and the missing circuitry, there was not too much difference.

 

  “Like you haven’t seen anything like that before,” the boy mumbled. Right then he knew, he knew of what his naked body reminded the program. He felt the sparkle of anger. The white suit began to dissolve under his hands, revealing that different, ancient looking pattern which was flickering now. Had it been a human body, it would have had flaws and imperfections – but it was not human. There was no way of delaying anymore; Sam pulled up those long, inert legs and positioned himself. He reached down and took his erection in his hand – with his other hand he grabbed Tron’s hair and turned his face toward himself. Sam was watching that face as he was pushing all the way inside. No sound came from outside of the room and the place was now filled by Tron’s painful screaming and the boy’s grunting.

 

  He was still for a few moments, once he was fully inside, enjoying the hot, intense feeling and the tortured cries. This was good: the doubts and hurt feelings wiped out of his mind at once, along with the confidence that the thoughts that had infected his life for years had been wrong; that it had not been his fault which had made his father leave. Sam groaned and lifted himself; he took Tron’s wrists and pressed them against the mattress. He was moving quickly and firmly, knowing that he would have time to take it slower later – to take it as many times and as many ways as he just wanted.

 

  Tron closed his eyes, jaw clenched. His expression was almost calm, except for the whimpers at the particularly hard thrusts. Sam looked down at his body, at the white sparkles of the circuitry that indicated pain. The long, disabled legs rested against Sam’s hips, the back of his thighs, the way he had placed them – everything was perfect and delicious, but something was still missing. He stopped for a moment, bent down and chafed his unshaven face against the program’s smooth skin. He only managed to ignite a soft whine.

 

  Sam was moving hard again, that body hot and pressing around him. As he was getting closer he glanced at the window and something occurred to him: that even it was plenty already, a lot more was coming, with the projects, constructions, programs and with all the developments that could possibly follow in the real world – and that he would have this all along, this contentment, this little reminder of the past and his own accomplishment. He came with a moan and collapsed down; he fell asleep immediately.

 

  The room was dim when he woke up with the lights out, except for what came through the window and the blinking of circuitry under Sam; those energy lines were blue now, turning white rapidly when the program noticed that the boy was waking up. Sam licked his lips. He did not know how long he had slept – it was restful and fine. The boy felt the steady hum of flowing energy under Tron’s skin. The program was still under his body, to avoid waking him up. Sam stirred and the lights of the room turned on.

 

  His mind cleared up rapidly. This was a different kind of solitude, different from the lonely bike rides on the coastal highway, different from the quickly dissolving happiness, ignited by alcohol, pot and shallow conversations at the college parties. Sam looked at Tron, at those pleading, sad eyes. He put his hand between the program’s legs and felt the hot, wet mess he had left there. Now he knew what he had been missing until then. Sam pushed a finger inside and Tron cried out.

 

  “You better stop whining,” the boy whispered. Tron stared at him, terrified, shaking his head as if he knew already what Sam was going to say. “Because things will be like this from now on.”

 

  Finally the tears Sam had been waiting for, started. He smiled, satisfied and climbed on top of the weakly resisting program.

 

XI.

 

  It was in the middle of the night: the ENCOM building was quiet and deserted. He met a security guard and a cleaner on the way to the parking lot; once there, he put on his helmet and turned the engine on.

 

  The city was sleeping: Sam was driving along dark streets and alleys. Trucks delivered boxes and containers to stores and malls and the sound of a boat horn came from the direction of the harbor. The bike was crossing the city in a quick pace.

 

  This was the beginning.

 

 


	4. Preludin Fugue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “In the old tale,” Flynn said, “there is a kingdom under the sea. The creatures there are different from human beings: they live much longer, they don’t suffer from various diseases, like people do. But they don’t have souls, so at the end of their lives they turn into foam on the waves and cease to exist. Then one day one of them, this little mermaid saves the life of a human, when he accidentally falls in the sea, in this strange realm and helps him to return into his own world. This Siren falls in love with the man and lets the sea-witch change its look, so it would become more pleasing to the human’s eye.”

 

 

 

I.

 

  “Honey,” the voice repeated. He turned there and looked at the blonde woman; she was sitting next to him in the car. Outside of the window there was the busy street, with loud and foul smelling vehicles. He was trying to focus on those and on the car they were sitting in; but the course of the memory was different.

 

_Not this one._

 

  The sun shone above: a bright coin of energy and warmth; yet it was not a coin, but a part of a different universe and there was a formula behind it. A nuclear fusion of hydrogen – he managed to recall it now, even if the words did not mean anything. He felt a tug before he could have examined the sequence more closely. He looked down at the toddler next to him: the child was standing on wobbly legs and grinned at him with cake-smeared face; the young Sam Flynn. He bent down to pick up the kid and the concentration was broken again.

 

  Clu looked up. The room was large and open in the front; beyond the wide balcony outside there was the old city center. The space was quiet and shady: there were a few tiny, white lights circling around the poles which surrounded the aisle in the middle. Slowly he rose and crossed the room; he looked at the surrounding buildings from the balcony.

 

  “What is that place?” Sam Flynn asked once, when they were on the way to a construction site. Clu glanced at the tall building.

 

  “The cathedral,” he said. The User turned at him slowly, his expression was doubtful.

 

  “Do you mean, there is a clergy in the city?” he asked.

 

  “Yes, there is,” Clu replied. Sam Flynn gestured surprisedly. He knew a lot about the system by then: this episode was a reminder for him of all the things he still had to learn.

 

  “Why?” he asked. “Why do they need it?

 

  “It is a place for meditation for them.”

 

  “And for worship,” Sam said, his displeasure obvious.

 

  “They can pray to their mighty User as much as they want,” Clu replied. “He wouldn’t come, and they are, at least, channeling their energies.

 

  The User remained silent. Clu returned to the place some time later: the energy lines were strong under the cathedral and that feature of the area supported meditation. And he needed that; he had to remember, he had to interpret those memories which were not his. The priests made a deep bow to him as he walked in, escorted by two guards.

 

  Clu looked at the view again. The degree of the changes was not obvious, not from this place: the look of the busy downtown had not changed much. Beyond that there were the hundreds of new buildings and dozens of new boulevards; and the User’s residence, which the programs called the Palace. The building was the second tallest edifice on the Grid after the tower which hosted the End of Line club; visible from all around the city and from the Outlands as well. One thing was missing: the Throne Ship, his mobile headquarters during the previous thousand cycles was gone – it was docked in the covered hangar of the largest military base, heavily guarded. Clu had begun to use a smaller jet instead: now, that the old offices in the city center were open again and had been restored as the center of administration, he did not need the authority and the functions of the large vehicle anymore. At least that was the answer he gave when Jarvis approached him with the question. Not like Clu actually had any obligation to answer the attendant program’s inquiries: maybe it was him, who wanted to declare that loudly – instead of the real reason.

 

  He walked back to his previous spot, to return to his mediation. He needed the answers to questions, answers that were buried in his memories… No, not there: in the memories which had been given him at the time of his creation – Kevin Flynn’s memories. Those archives were different from his own: untidy, unclear. It was difficult to browse and he rarely did it: not just because he did not particularly need that, but because he lacked the human apprehension to be able to actually interpret the recordings. This time Clu saw no other option to get the explanations without touching that data. Again he closed his eyes and focused on the word.

 

  _Energy_.

 

 

II.

 

  The first phase of the constructions was about to finish at that time: the first new programs were scheduled to appear within one cycle. Everybody in the city was busy and excited, the usual tension lessened, the resistance, that had made a move again and again before Sam’s arrival, was silent. The entertainment centers were still open, but the premises were almost empty; the Arena was closed. All the distraction that had been necessary before, to release the stress, was gone: there was no need anymore to provide amusement as earlier the system had been at maximum memory capacity and there had been no room for further development. There had always been certain unrest, even fight during the cycles – it had never been completely clear for Clu, what those programs had been fighting for. Even if they could overtake Clu’s forces, they had had no real plan, not even a chosen leader; and the system had not been designed to operate without an administrator.

 

  Now the atmosphere was positive and expectant: most of the programs had not seen the new User yet, but all the changes that had followed his arrival were for the benefit of the system. And he was Flynn’s son: even with no conception of that other world, the programs knew that the two Users were linked to each other. Kevin Flynn had left his creatures with mixed feelings – he was the Creator and the locals remembered his goodwill; but they also remembered his treason, that he had failed to come when his followers had given their lives for him. They had barely seen Sam Flynn before; that was going to be changing soon.

 

  “I want to hold a reception,” Sam said in the office during one of his visits. Every terminal in the room was occupied and outside there was a group of System Utilities, waiting for instructions.

 

  “A reception?” Clu asked. Until then he had not noticed if the User cared for formalities; he had the impression that it was about something else now too.

 

  “After the new sectors are completed, and the first group of the new programs is launched, I want to have a few of them as guests.”

 

  “To celebrate?” Clu asked. This was like Flynn’s numerous, annoying statements: Clu knew that there was something else on the User’s mind.

 

  “Yes,” said Sam with a grin. “To celebrate.”

 

  He turned at the window, at the sight of the new Grid. He was working hard, Clu admitted: he was more reliable with his visits than his father had been, he seemed to manage his time more efficiently.

 

  “Sure,” Clu said. “Do it.”

 

  “You have to be there too,” the User replied. “And…”

 

  Clu looked at him. Sam was sunk deep in his thoughts. Soon after he nodded at the city on the other side of the window.

 

  “Do they know, who Rinzler was?” he asked. Clu folded his arms. They rarely talked about that program.

 

  “No.”

 

  Sam turned toward him: the boy’s face was unreadable.

 

  “How come? You don’t write programs; didn’t they suspect anything, when Rinzler appeared?”

 

  “No. First of all, before he left, Flynn told his followers that he had seen Tron dying. They believed him, in everything. And the word went out.”

 

  “But he couldn’t see such thing.”

 

  “Indeed, he just told them what he believed he had seen. Never even trying to be accurate, to be specific… This time it came handy.”

 

  “And still, they didn’t suspect anything? They had the same circuitry, the same look.”

 

  “They never saw his face. And the circuitry can change when a program is being rectified, you know that. They thought it was an appropriated program that had been given capabilities and skills similar to Tron’s.”

 

  “Good,” replied Sam with a satisfied smile. “He should be there at the reception too.”

 

  “What?” Clu asked. He was at a loss to understand Sam’s train of thoughts.

 

  “As I just said. I’m sending a message to Flynn,” the User replied. He was still staring at the window, with a playful smile on his face.

 

  “A message?”

 

  “It will make him come ahead. If he is still himself, this will make him come.”

 

  Clu was thinking for a moment.

 

  “You do what you want,” he said finally. “But you can’t derezz Tron in order to lure Flynn back.”

 

  Sam looked at him, mildly surprised.

 

  “I have no such plans,” he said. Soon after the System Utilities were admitted in the room and the briefing began.

 

 

III.

 

  _Energy_.

 

  This was going to be though: he knew that since long. The User expected the Grid to provide solutions to the problems of his own world – and it was a great challenge, but Clu was unsure whether it was achievable. He, the only one in the system, was able to understand the demand, because of his human memories; yet, there was no other program like him, and even the brightest engineer on the Grid could not figure the answer to a question that they were not able to comprehend. And this was unacceptable: Clu had always considered the system superior to the User world: being incapable of providing the solution would have been crushing – that was not going to be happening.

 

  Energy; as he focused on the word and recalled the related memories, he slipped in the meditation deeper and deeper. It was difficult: at that point other images, other recordings from Flynn’s and his own mind started to play and it took an effort to suppress them.

 

  _Not now._

 

  Energy, power was essential for the Grid, but it always came from the outside and the method of actually creating energy was beyond comprehension. The dirty methods of generating the power were out of the understanding of a program: having the energy was a default state.

 

  “Oh, man,” Flynn said and covered his face with his hands. “I must be insane of trying to explain mortality to a program.”

 

_Not this memory. Not now._

 

  After long, focused contemplation the flow of the information began. Black coal, solid material, and oil, pumped out of the ground, natural gas and wood. The nuclear reaction: the energy was immeasurable, but all those methods to create it were inefficient and created poisonous or radioactive waste.

 

  _Inefficient_.

 

    And there were the renewable sources, the wind, the water, the sun – with no meaning for a program –, neglected as inefficient and expensive.

 

  _Inefficient_. _The energy is there, they just don’t use it wisely._

 

  This changed the whole picture: it was not the obscure problem of inducing energy, but to use it efficiently enough and without waste. Clu let himself relax slightly; now he knew. He was exhausted; he even needed to stay sit for a while before leaving the place. The other memory sequences were still there, demanding his attention. There was that particular one, which had been pushed back during the previous thousand cycles and had been recalled only after Sam Flynn’s first arrival in the system. Now, that he had what he needed, Clu gave in and let the recording play.

 

  The first part of the memory was not his own: he had found it on Tron’s disc after Flynn’s defeat. It took place at a dim, oddly furnished place – at one of Flynn’s residences. In the scene Tron was looking at his own hand, which had been changed before, along with his other features.

 

  “Do you like it?” a bodiless voice asked. Tron turned at looked at Flynn: the User was lying on a couch, his attire disheveled.

 

  “I don’t really care. Do you like it?” asked back Tron. Flynn smiled.

 

  “Yes,” he said.

 

  “Then I like it too,” the program replied, the tone of his voice revealed that he was smiling too. He leaned there and the two kissed. The User held Tron’s face between his hands.

 

  “Look at you,” he said. “So beautiful.”

 

  “And?” Tron asked, teasing.

 

  “Perfect,” Flynn said. Tron laughed on his new voice and the User stared at him, amused. “Come here.”

 

  The program walked there and straddled Flynn; he was moving slowly, apparently enjoying the effect he had on the User.

 

  “I just…” Tron said later, “too bad that I don’t look like my User anymore.”

 

  “Mhhm. Well, you two didn’t look alike anyway, since quite long,” Flynn replied sleepily.

 

  “Why is that?” Tron asked, surprised. The User was dozing off, he did not reply until the program nudged him.

 

  “Oh, you know. He created you years ago. You didn’t change, but Alan is older now, gained a few pounds and he wears his glasses all the time.”

 

  “I see,” Tron said. “Older.”

 

  “Yeah.”

 

  Tron was thinking.

 

  “I don’t understand,” he said. The User turned to him and touched the program’s face once again. Watching this memory later on Tron’s disc, this was what Clu hated the most: the intimacy, that look on Flynn’s face and the obvious devotion the program was listening to him with.

 

  “I changed too during the years,” he said. “You have surely realized that.”

 

  “Yes…” Tron agreed, his voice uncertain.

 

  “That’s how life is, at least for us,” Flynn chuckled; but his face was serious – his attempt to loosen up the situation, failed. “We get old and die.”

 

  There was another silence.

 

  “Inevitably?” asked Tron. Flynn stroked his hair.

 

  “Yes, but…”

 

  “But?” the program asked quickly. The User was tense now.

 

  “Nothing,” he said. Tron shook his head slowly and retracted, getting away from the User, from the secluded house, from the city for long. Clu remembered that time: Flynn left and was absent for a while. Tron was on a long tour at the outskirts of the system: when he returned and they met, Clu was speechless for a while – from the anger and the yearning. Those changes about the program were not a simple update; but he could not say anything.

 

  When the portal lit up for the next time, Clu was waiting for Flynn to show up in the office. The User did not come: he was in the workshop where he designed the new programs, buildings and appliances. Clu went there: the second part of that memory was his own, of that meeting.

 

  The room was unusually dark when he walked in, contrary to the brightly lit, loud environment Flynn created when he was working. The User was sitting at his desk in the middle, untidy, brooding. He looked up with bloody eyes as Clu was approaching.  

 

  “What is that?” Clu asked. He was irritated: there were so many things to do, so many unfinished projects and he had to deal with the User’s moods again.

 

  “Oh, man,” Flynn said and covered his face with his hands. “I must be insane of trying to explain mortality to a program.”

 

  “What?”

 

  There was someone else in the room too: a new program. It was walking ahead; a female, with white skin and hair, and with piercing blue eyes. She was wearing a tight-fitting, silver-white costume with white circuitry. She stopped next to Flynn and looked at Clu with a smile.

 

  “What is this?” Clu asked.

 

  “My name is Gem,” the new program replied. The User leaned back in his chair, he was grinning.

 

  “It is a Siren,” he said. “A mermaid.”

 

  Clu stared at them inquisitively.

 

  “In the old tale,” Flynn said, “there is a kingdom under the sea. The creatures there are different from human beings: they live much longer, they don’t suffer from various diseases, like people do. But they don’t have souls, so at the end of their lives they turn into foam on the waves and cease to exist. Then one day one of them, this little mermaid saves the life of a human, when he accidentally falls in the sea, in this strange realm and helps him to return into his own world. This Siren falls in love with the man and lets the sea-witch change its look, so it would become more pleasing to the human’s eye.”

 

  He was grinning drunkenly.

 

  “And then what happens?” Clu asked. He felt like flipping the table and punching Flynn in the face. The User did not reply; the new program next to him was still standing there with that phlegmatic smile on her face. Later Flynn designed a few others, similar to Gem: perfect looking, female programs all of them. To balance their fragile appearance, the User gave them a rather selfish, sneaky nature, providing Clu with one more reason to dislike them. He never recalled this memory until the time came: Sam Flynn, the newly arrived User was escorted around the system and while Clu was waiting for him to return and make his decision, he walked to the cell where his fallen enforcer was being held. Rinzler was lying on the floor unconsciously, his circuitry faint blue against his combat suit. Clu bent down and disintegrated the program’s helmet: he had seen that face countless times during the previous thousand cycles, still, it was like seeing someone again, someone that had been gone for very long. That was when he allowed himself to remember, while he discarded Rinzler’s red disc and made those minor adjustments to Tron’s, which permanently derezzed the program’s helmet, gloves and armor and changed the texture and color of his suit – that was when he recalled, who Flynn’s Siren had been.

 

  Clu stood up and began to walk out of the room. There were several programs in the other rooms, meditating or talking quietly – many of then looked up as the system administrator crossed their view. The two guards joined him and they exited the cathedral: the small jet landed in front of the enormous gate to pick them up.

 

 

 

 

IV.

 

  The User was about to leave the system; he was standing in front of the Palace. He seemed to be pleased, as every time when he managed to finish the work he planned and he got what he wanted. It was unusual from him to send for the system administrator at this time, yet Clu went when his message arrived.

 

  “I wanted you to have this,” Sam Flynn said. The showed his data pad to Clu: there was a seven-digit code blinking on the screen.

 

  “What is this?” Clu asked.

 

  “It’s a password.”

 

  “For what?”

 

  “Did you memorize it?”

 

  “Yes.”

 

  “Say it loudly,” Sam said. Clu complied and a loud, thunder-like sound followed.

 

  “Good,” the User said and collapsed the pad.

 

  “What is this?” Clu asked again.

 

  “It’s a pass code for an emergency shutdown for the system.”

 

  “It didn’t shut down.”

 

  “It can not be done while I am here. If you say this code anytime, when I am away, it saves everything and shuts down. If that happens, only I will be able to restart it, from the outside, but whatever data would be saved, that will be safe and available. The saving process is quick, but don’t forget, it will take longer here. So if anything happens that requires such action, say the code as soon as you can, because it is hard to estimate the speed of that procedure.”

 

  “What if anybody else says the password?” asked Clu.

 

  “Nothing will happen. Only you can activate it.”

 

  Clu nodded. While Kevin Flynn had been very careless, Sam appeared to be way too cautious sometimes. The system administrator did not offer a remark: this behavior was closer to his liking. Sam left soon after and Clu returned to his duties. He had a meeting with the head engineers; they discussed the new research. It was hard and tedious, but once they got the idea, it became much smoother. Later he received reports about the status of the constructions and from the informers that monitored the System Utilities.

 

  The ship was tiny under the great roof of the hangar; it was dark except for the base lights. This part of the stronghold was quiet – there was Clu’s other jet, docked close, with the crew beginning the maintenance and two guards were stationed in front of the old ship. The ramp opened and Clu walked in. It was odd to see the Throne Ship like this: deserted and dark. The terminals were empty now; all the content had been copied and reloaded in the office machines.

 

  The door of his private rooms opened and then closed behind him. This place was lit by the golden panels in the wall – the room had no window. The silence was perfect, especially since the only occupant was lying on the bed, sleeping. Clu went there and sat down on the edge of the mattress. Tron was lying curled up; he must have been in pain when he had been brought back to the ship and had fallen asleep. Clu was looking at him; things were not going the way they were supposed to be. He had agreed to share the program with Sam, because this way he had the User in his hand. Users changed quickly: the system administrator expected Sam Flynn to lose his interest quite soon anyway and to leave Tron alone. By then the boy’s cruelty would make Tron forget whatever – wrong – ideas and hopes he still had about Users… about Kevin Flynn. Then he would start appreciate Clu and would submit.

 

  But things were not going fine, not according to the plan. Tron still refused to give in: he rather took the excruciating pain – and that was not the worst thing. Usually the program did not attempt to fight, in order to shorten the suffering, but there were bad days, especially right after Sam’s visits, when he was crying and pleading. Last time, when Clu came Tron did none of those: he was just lying there lifelessly. Once Clu finished and started to get ready, he looked down at the program, then reached there and touched Tron’s face. The program glanced up: there was insanity in his eyes. That was bad; Clu wanted him to break, but not like that – he had seen it to happen to programs, that had been forced against their original programming or had been damaged critically. It was very difficult to fix such a problem, almost impossible. Clu had been wondering about it; he knew that his own and Sam’s actions, added to the imprisonment and the near to complete disability were simply too much for the program. Tron had never been locked up this long before, and even as Rinzler he had been allowed to wander freely in the dark tunnels under the city, where he had been hunting for bugs. The only issue Clu could do something about was his broken coding: now, that Tron was unable to move on his own, it was the considerable escort of four Black Guards and Jarvis that took him to the Palace when the User was present.

 

  At first it was the utter aggravation which showed up on Jarvis’ face when Clu told him about his new assignment; and the system administrator had to think that his assistant was not that bright as he had thought. Then Jarvis realized that he was going to be sent to the User’s residence, where he would spend all his time with talking to the programs that belonged to Sam Flynn’s household – and attain every information available -, and then he was smiling gratefully. That exhilaration did not change his attitude toward the prisoner; Clu was actually surprised, how willingly they brutalized Tron. By then they knew with whom they were dealing, and still, Jarvis, who had always been scared of Rinzler, talked to Tron disdainfully and called him a slave. The guards were no different; they had been fellow soldiers for long, and yet they did not even try to suppress the pleased growling when Tron was in their hands. Not that any of them would be insane and attempt anything – the program was still pale from the terror when they came for him.

 

  Clu stood up, brought out Tron’s disc and then sat down again. He was working quietly: the symbols of the broken codes emerged as he activated the disc. He did not restore any of the original skills or strength; there was no point to do anything like that – that would have just given Tron false hopes and he would have been hurt at the end. But there was no reason not to give back the ability to walk on his own, to be able to coordinate his moves or talk without the constant stuttering: to be in level with the other Sirens at least.

 

  He was about to close the disc once he saved the changes, when he reviewed the disc itself. It was still the black disc of a combatant, dangerous even in clumsy hands. Clu finished the reconfiguration with one more line and then closed the folders.

 

  The program was coming round slowly; the system administrator took the disc back from the port as he was waiting. The modifications had not been installed yet: this boost only woke Tron up. The program opened his eyes and stirred; once he recognized the place and Clu, he was bracing himself immediately. Clu was standing next to him, with the disc in his hand. Some time passed and Tron glanced up as if he was wondering why Clu was not on him yet.   

 

  “I fixed some of your coding,” the system administrator said. “You will be able to walk, along with other small repairs. You don’t have to be grateful, but there is one thing you have to keep in mind. If you ever try to run away, I will take back everything. Do you understand?”

 

  After a short moment Tron’s circuits made a sudden flash. The program turned as quickly as he could, presenting the port on his back; he was making impatient and happy sounds. Clu smiled inadvertently, and attached the disc. Tron remained conscious while the updates installed, he just went slack against the mattress. When the turned, his face was different, focused. Slowly he lifted his hands and looked at them as if he was seeing them for the first time. He bent his fingers and stretched them out: Clu knew that he was testing the strength. Then Tron jumped on his feet without any staggering or wobbliness. The system administrator walked to the counter and leant to it, from there he watched the program as he was turning and testing his abilities. He was livelier than anytime since his reversion and he seemed to be forgetting that he was not alone. Then he looked at Clu, the inner struggle written on his face – he must have realized by then that the updates did not make him strong or quick enough to fight or break out. Hesitantly he reached behind his shoulder; the port was placed lower on this costume than it had been on a combat suit. After long, awkward stretching Tron managed to remove his own disc. He was moving at a slow pace: he had to know that Clu was not making such mistakes and he seemed to be afraid to look at the disc. It activated with a lazy hum, without the edges flaring up dangerously. It was the harmless, white disc of a Siren, not more than a data folder.

 

  Tron’s hands began to shake and the disc slipped out from his fingers. It fell on the edge of the bed and from there to the floor, with a dull knock. The program buried his face in his palms. Clu walked there, picked up the disc and took it away. When he turned back he saw that Tron was staring at him with a desperate expression.

 

  “I can work for you,” Tron said quickly as Clu began to walk toward him.

 

  “What? What do you want to do?”

 

  “Anything. Anything, but this.”

 

  “I don’t need anything else from you,” Clu replied and stopped in front of him. Tron lifted his hands; he must have forced himself not to try to punch and kick ineffectively, in order to keep whatever was left of his dignity. His fingers touched Clu’s suit as the other program stepped closer and Tron trembled, as he felt the combat suit and the armor, an attire which he was not going to be wearing ever again.

 

  “The only difference you make with resisting, is making it worse for yourself,” Clu said. Tron looked at him defiantly.

 

  “You are beautiful,” Clu said. Tron flinched. “Perfect.”

 

  “Don’t you dare,” Tron growled. Clu seized him, his fingers went into a fist in Tron’s hair.

 

  “Isn’t this what you like?” he asked. “Isn’t this what you want?”

 

  “From you I don’t want a thing,” Tron replied angrily. He hissed as his head was pulled back to present the delicious throat.

 

  “I told you don’t have to be grateful,” Clu murmured, “but you could behave yourself.”

 

  He kissed Tron’s neck; he felt the buzz of hot energy under his lips, under his tongue. For the shortest time Tron’s circuitry turned to a darker shade: but that was only sensory reaction, Clu knew that by now. Then the circuits became light blue and then white as the program was already in pain from the beginning of the unwanted energy switch. It was a tiny difference, the consent he did not yield, yet it was a big enough difference to make him screaming from the pain all along the intercourse and trashing in Clu’s arms. But at least that maniacal sparkle that Clu had seen in his eyes was gone now. It was not much; it had to be enough for now anyway – that was what Clu thought as he was lying there, satisfied, with the shaking program in his arms.

 

 

V.

 

  The ship that transported the first group of the new programs in the system, landed in an outer district. The vehicle was a hard drive, which had been attached to the computer from the outside. The User had told before that he was not planning to write programs while on the Grid, following Flynn’s example. Clu had recognized this difference between the Users before: making new programs had been creation for Flynn; for Sam it was simply it, writing new programs and installing them. He did not blame Sam for that – he knew that the boy still did not think about programs as if they were sentient beings. There was an actual concern on Sam’s face when they were talking about that.

 

  “It is spectacular,” Sam said. “The system. Even if this, what I see is just an interpretation of a machine to make it apprehensible for me… I’m not sure if there is anything like it outside.”

 

  “How do you mean that?” Clu asked.

 

  “In every single computer. In every cell phone. In everything that has programs inside.”

 

  “I don’t know,” Clu replied.

 

  “But here, it does exist. What he created, lives, in a way. What if what I will make…”

 

  Clu nodded.

 

  “We will see,” he said. He was eager to see the new programs too: he and most of the sentries were waiting on the plains when the ship appeared on the sky. As it touched the ground, a portal opened as the User entered the system. They met at the open ramp of the ship: the new programs were inside, waiting.

 

  “I don’t want them to enter the system on their own,” Sam said before. “Not until we see, what they are.”

 

  Clu was not sure if the User was concerned about their look or their behavior – or he was afraid that he would not be able to repeat the creation, and the new programs would not be alive in the way as the Grid citizens were. He wrote the programs from the outside, which meant he did not give them an actual look or personality.

 

   The worries proved to be unnecessary: for their look, the new programs were quite similar to Flynn’s creatures; they were just simpler, in the same black coats which had no visible circuitry, with practical hairstyles and without the face tattoos and other body modifications that were so popular amongst the old programs. Upon these details Clu assumed that they were less eccentric, probably even with few personality traits. First they were shy, then, as they began to leave the ship and talk, they appeared to be rather bright and friendly. Sam Flynn was relieved: as his initial concern disappeared, he started to look for somebody in the crowd. Clu was near, when the User found the program, and saw the surprise and then the delight on Sam’s face. The program was a female, tall and very slender, yet strong-looking. She had pale skin and long, dark hair that fell on her back in a single braid. She wore the same, very simple dark outfit as the others.

 

  “I put one of my old programs on the drive,” Sam explained, “the one that broke into the ENCOM system.”

 

  The program looked at the User, smiling politely. Flynn would start giving them names, Clu thought, right here and now. But Sam just ordered them to the city; he was smiling too though. The programs began to board the large carrier vehicles that were there to transport them to the city.

 

  They watched the celebration from the large window of the ballroom. The room was prepared for the reception which was going to be held in twenty centicycles.

 

  “Tomorrow,” Sam said, looking at the fireworks. It was similar to the ones which had popped on the stormy sky after his arrival.

 

  Clu glanced around. It was his first visit in the Palace and he could understand Jarvis’ tirades about the place. The ballroom was on the fiftieth floor; the outer wall was a single window, providing an amazing view of the city.

 

  “They seem to be adopting quickly,” Sam said.

 

  “Yes.”

 

  The User fell silent – was he anxious? Gloomy? Clu could not tell.

 

  “The projects we were talking about at the beginning…” Clu said.

 

  “What about them?” Sam asked.

 

  “Some programs, that were not involved in the constructions, have been working on them. And they have… results.”

 

  The User turned at the system administrator with a fiery expression.

 

  “I knew they would,” he said. “I just didn’t expect it this soon. Once the reception is over… once Flynn left, that project will have the greatest priority.”

 

  “You are very sure, that he would come after the reception.”

 

  “He will. If he will not… then my father is dead; then it is not him anymore.”

 

  Clu nodded.

 

  “Fine,” he said. “Don’t forget your promise.”

 

  “I will not,” Sam replied. He crossed the room; at the other end there was a wide stand with some fixtures at the wall and a single armchair in the middle.

 

  “Is this supposed to be a throne?” Clu asked.

 

  “Yeah,” Sam replied.

 

  “And who will sit there? You?”

 

  The boy glanced at him.

 

  “Is that a problem?” he asked. He was not being sarcastic, his question was serious. Clu still laughed.

 

  “You sit where you fancy, User,” he said. But Sam sensed the tension.

 

  “Then what?” he asked. Clu folded his arms.

 

  “You can sit on your throne,” he said, “You do, what you want, as the system is yours. But don’t forget, even if you think that you are here a lot, from our perspective there are very long periods of time between your visits, even if you come in every, what you call it, day.”

 

  Sam nodded.

 

  “The equivalent of two months,” he said. “That’s how long time passes here, during one day up there. I am aware of that.

 

  “Good. Don’t forget it. You are the User, and for that you have everything here. But for the same reason, you can not have everything, not really.”

 

  “I will not forget it,” Sam said. Programs came to work on the room and the two of them remained silent.

 

 

VI.

 

  There was a larger celebration before the reception, with lightshows, concerts and sport events in the Arena. Down on the street the old and the new programs mingled; it was different from the mood that had followed the ISOs' appearance, different from the general incomprehension, fear and distaste. This was the perfect system.

 

_You promised that we would create it. And we have done so… without you._

 

  The ballroom was full of programs: with the most important engineers, soldiers, game champions, System Utilities and artists from all around the city. Old programs only: the only newcomer in the room was Jayden, the one that Sam Flynn had been looking for at the ship. She was standing at the wall in her simple, black dress, with her eyes on the crowd.

 

  There was a toast and they were watching the fireworks through the window. Clu was standing next to Sam’s chair, examining the crowd. Most of them were looking at the User – they seemed to be proud to be the chosen ones and be present at this event. The most important and influential programs on the Grid: their reviews of the reception and the User would surely spread quickly.

 

  As the fireworks stopped outside, the lights turned on in the ballroom. Programs came in with large trays, serving sparkling energy in glasses. Sam glanced up at Clu and the system administrator looked at Jarvis that was waiting at the side of the platform. Jarvis walked to the side and returned with two guards; the guards were dragging Tron with them. Tron’s hands were tied together behind his back with a red light rope. The ballroom went silent suddenly. Clu looked at Tron: the program was panicking. He must have remembered what had happened when he had seen Clu and Sam Flynn together for the last time, and there was the crowd too. The guards took him to the throne, forced him on his knees and hooked another red rope around his neck. Yes, Clu thought as he was staring straight, at the dumbfound guests, he could have done this a thousand cycles before. He could have kept Tron, dragging him around on a leash. But back then he had been hoping: he had been hoping that with the reprogramming he could have Tron on his side, with his original qualities. It had proved to be a vain hope; and it did not matter anyway. The guards stepped back and Tron stayed there, tied to the throne with the short leash – all he could do was to bow his head, so the crowd would not see his face. The programs were shocked anyway, by the violence, by the whole scene – and Clu was quite sure that they had not recognized the prisoner yet.

 

  Sam Flynn was smiling. Clu just understood his lazy, relaxed mood: the User’s smell was on Tron – Sam had had him not long before the reception. There were many sensitive programs standing close to them and the system administrator knew that they would feel it too. Sam was still grinning; he reached down, grabbed Tron’s hair and forced the program to face the crowd. Somebody in the room dropped a glass. Maybe he was right, Clu thought, maybe this would make Flynn step ahead. This was _bad_. There must have been programs that had seen Tron when he had been taken to the User before and the word would have gone out sooner or later: Sam just made the process quicker.

 

  Castor, the club owner and Clu’s informer was standing in the front row with his two companions. He began to laugh suddenly, and the crowd, as if they were just waiting for the sign, followed suit. Most of them: there were a few, who remained serious, hostile even. Many of the User-believers, some artists, System Utilities – Clu looked at Shaddox, who stood at the back. The architect program’s face was burning from the shame; one of the good friends that had never bothered to look. Some of the Reds were unsmiling as well: high-ranked administrators, a few of the combatants. Clu did not expect his followers to join the general cheerfulness, yet, he found it very informative to see the reactions. Which one, he thought, which one of them would bring this scene on his disc to the Creator?

 

  He returned to Castor, who was still laughing. There were two Sirens on his side: Gem and another one, with ebony skin and black hair. They were the opposite: they remained silent and stared at Sam Flynn mortifyingly. The young User had never asked Clu about that Siren suit, he did not know the _why_ – he could believe that it was a simple association, a mere degradation. Thus he did not exactly understand the message he sent out with staging this scene, he did not recognize the depth of it. Clu looked down at Tron; Flynn’s Siren, the immortal beloved, bound with red light ropes and presented to the cheerful crowd. Sam had been right: the Creator would step ahead soon.

 

  Sam released Tron. The program’s head fell ahead as he was shutting down from the distress. The User rose from his chair.

 

  “And now, go,” he said to the crowd. “Enjoy the rest of the night. Enjoy your new system.”

 

 

VII.

 

  The celebration was still on when Clu walked to his jet. Thousands of programs were on the streets around the palace, the music was loud, the last fireworks popped. The system administrator looked up at the brightly lit building and then at the dark silhouettes of the Outlands. Some strange calmness filled him: a long wait was going to end soon.

 

  The ramp of the plane was open and he walked in. Tron was already on board, sleeping. Their first destination was the military base and the docked Throne Ship. After that, there was work that needed to be done; and the waiting.

 

  The jet slowly lifted up from the ground.

 

 


	5. The Fire Thief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> According to the old myth, Prometheus, the titan stole the fire from the gods and gave it to the people who suffered from the cold and ate their food raw. As a punishment for his action, Prometheus was chained to a pillar; every day a giant eagle would come to eat the titan’s liver. When night fell, the wound healed just so the eagle could come the next day and tear it open again. He was condemned to take this punishment until the eternity; then one day another hero came and freed Prometheus from his chains. Kevin Flynn did not, not even in his most ambitious moments, compare himself to gods or titans, but now, after a thousand years of exile, during which he had been torn open by that eagle of self-loathing and regret every day, he wished he had made it away with those embers he had tried to steal.

I.

 

  According to the old myth, Prometheus, the titan stole the fire from the gods and gave it to the people who suffered from the cold and ate their food raw. As a punishment for his action, Prometheus was chained to a pillar; every day a giant eagle would come to eat the titan’s liver. When night fell, the wound healed just so the eagle could come the next day and tear it open again. He was condemned to take this punishment until the eternity; then one day another hero came and freed Prometheus from his chains. Kevin Flynn did not, not even in his most ambitious moments, compare himself to gods or titans, but now, after a thousand years of exile, during which he had been torn open by that eagle of self-loathing and regret every day, he wished he had made it away with those embers he had tried to steal.

 

  “Come back to me,” somebody whispered. “It’s very important. You have to wake up.”

 

  But more and more often, for longer and longer periods of time, terms like ‘have to’, did not matter anymore. Urgency, wants and hopes had no meaning in this place; those words could not even scratch the shell of silence which descended on him.

 

  “It’s about Sam,” the desperate voice continued. “He’s here, on the Grid.”

 

  Sam – that name have had a meaning; he was just unable to recall it now, the same way as he was unable to remember the face that was attached to the name in his memories. And this name, it did not belong to this place; that previous statement must have been the trick of his own mind to further torment him. It had happened many times during the cycles: he had heard the call and he had looked up expectantly – just to face the emptiness again and again. He was not making such mistakes these days.

 

  “Please,” the voice insisted. That was later; he could not tell exactly how long time had passed though. “Your son, Sam. He is back and he is with Clu now.”

 

  The voice was full of terror and disbelief. The words had a greater impact than the previous ones had had: he was closer to wakefulness, rather conscious now. It was not enough for real comprehension, yet it stirred something, it reminded him of memories which had been buried since very, very long time.

 

 

II.

 

  “Wow, a boy?”

 

 “It’s pretty hard to miss, Kevin,” she said and took a sip from her cup. The street was busy around them, full of people; the air was filled by smog and the sound of the passing cars. “You should have seen it. It was magical.”

 

  “It just looks grainy and fuzzy,” he replied, scratching his head. “I’m used to better graphics. Someone should really invent a better sonogram camera.”

 

  She smiled – his wife smiled and that expression burned into his mind and he would remember it for very long later, when the walls of his own digital realm would close around him.

 

  “Well, when you’re done with your current obsession, you can make that your next priority,” she said.

 

  “For you, anything.”

 

  He found it amazing, how easy it was to say those words of endearment, which were so contrary to his previous, sarcastic nature, how easy it was to be – happy. To be successful in every sense of the word; not that he needed a reminder of his own achievement, yet a few blocks away, on the other side of the street there was the glass tower of ENCOM. He was looking at that as he lifted his cup to his lips and drank.

 

  “Even grainy and fuzzy, it was beyond anything I’ve ever seen,” she said. “It’s a new life. It’s just… beyond anything I could express.”

 

  He nodded, with his eyes still on the ENCOM building.

 

  “I know what you mean,” he replied. And he did or at least he believed so: he did think that it was going to be possible to hold on in two entirely different worlds. And it worked for a while: he had the family he had always dreamed of, his friends’ and colleagues’ support – and by then he saw the fire on the Grid; the ISOs. It did not take long for him to find out why those entirely different programs began to emerge in the system: every time he entered the computer, the system saved the codes of his human form. At one point, after countless entries, when enough information came together, the ISOs started to appear: digital creatures, based on human DNA, but corrected by the computer, which revised the possible errors. Human evolution, which took place inside of the Grid, during a period of time equivalent to centuries: without the actual presence of people. It was not hard to recognize the gravity of the discovery, that had he been able to take it to his own world, that could be the answer to vital questions, a shortcut, finding the cure to fatal diseases and improve the quality of life in a way which would take decades or more without the ISOs. Kevin Flynn imagined the change which would occur in the real world, without illnesses, with the chance for everybody to recover from the worst accidents, to prolong human life span. And that was only the first step: such event was going to change the approach to all disciplines, to the world itself.

 

  And then Rome fell in a day.

 

 

 

III.

 

  “Hey babe,” he said. “I told you I’d bring Sam by on his birthday. It was last week. I’m late, like normal.”

 

  The memory changed every time he recalled it through the cycles: contrary to the recollection of his programs, which was perfect, without missing any detail, his memories did vary; sometimes they were standing next to each other in the cemetery, he and his son, other times he was holding the child in his arms. Sometimes it was at daytime and leaves were falling from the trees, other times it was dark and it was raining; they were on the Grid. Neon green trees surrounded the graveyard: on the headstones there were blinking texts and images with the names and pictures of the derezzed programs. Flynn looked at the closest one, at the sign and the slowly rotating 3D photo.

 

_Jordan Canas – Beloved wife and mother._

 

  “Daddy, can we go?” Sam asked. Flynn looked at the child: his son missed his afternoon nap – did that term have a meaning here? -, and he was tired now. 

 

  “Sure, buddy,” he replied. “Just give me a second to talk to Mommy.”

 

  He looked at the angular leaves of the closest tree: their color slowly changed from green to turquoise and then back. There was the quiet whisper of the wind.

 

  “I miss you every single day, Jordan,” he said. “Tell Mommy you love her.”

 

  “Love you, Mommy,” his son said. He put down the child; they turned and walked out of the graveyard. It took too long, he thought, to get the results, to bring the ISO discovery to his own world. It would have not helped his wife anyway; but there were others that were waiting for the miracle. From that day he focused on that research; until the idea of the book came, until the new demands of the board, until he decided to spend more time with his son. His attention got divided – but he knew that he would finish everything, that he could accomplish in time. And he was happy; they were happy.

 

  But he ran out of time.

 

 

IV.

 

  “I was going to sit down and give you guys a speech. I was going to talk about ENCOM and what it means to me and how hard is to step away. I was going to tell you how ENCOM is my baby and it breaks my heart to not to be able to spend the time here that I’d like to.”

 

  He stopped. He looked at them: insincere sympathy on the faces of middle-aged men and women. There was only one man sitting at the long table, who seemed to be rather unconcerned; and yet he knew that this man was the only person in the room who actually cared for him.

 

_Alan… I should have been honest with you._

It was not about of being honest though, not at the first place. It was about wanting to keep the secret of the Grid as long as it was possible. He had taken the laser and had begun using it with the second system by then and it would have been too late to reveal that to Alan. And he did not want to face his friend’s disapproval or even possible disdain. Alan was his friend, yet way more straightforward than him, than any of his other friends. Kevin Flynn had probably respected, but surely had not liked Alan until he met his creature, who shared Alan’s personality traits, in a more direct, distillated way. That was when he began to appreciate Alan Bradley.

 

  “But I decided to tell you the truth instead. ENCOM is a company and I’m just a cog in the machine. I’m a cog who causes you too much of a headache. Rather than stand in the way of your bottom line, I’d rather step away. Things need to work differently. We can’t lose sight of what made this place great.”

 

  Alan was looking at him with the same indifferent expression. _He would look at me just the same now._  

 

  “But I’m tired of hearing your complaints and fighting you. This company wasn’t built in a day and I have no fear it’ll still be here when I get back. But my son needs me, so I need to take a backseat for a little while.”

 

  They were standing next to one another in the office. The street was busy down there, the windows of the surrounding skyscrapers mirrored the sunlight.

 

  “That could have gone better,” Alan said.

 

  “It could have gone worse,” he responded. “At least I wasn’t late to the meeting.”

 

  “No, you were your usual professional self. Aren’t you worried they won’t let you back?”

 

  “I don’t really care. My priorities do not include pleasing a bunch of power-hungry suits anymore. Besides, I’ll be back before they know it.”

 

  They were watching the city view. He would be back, Flynn thought, soon. They would be back: one day he would be standing there with his son on his side.

 

  “I need to be there for Sam more than I need to be here,” he added. “I can’t be pulled between two worlds all of the time.”

 

  He looked at the view from his office once again; for the last time in his life.

 

  “But this is some view, huh?” he asked.

 

  “It sure is,” Alan replied. “Good luck, buddy.”

 

 

V.

 

  He cracked it; after months of failed attempts and research he found the way to bring the miracle out of the system and deliver it safely in the real world. Similar to other great discoveries it was easier to carry out than to actually come up with the idea; the key was adding some information to his own disc, rather than trying to modify the chosen ISO’s data folder. He needed to be there during the transmission – there was no other way out of the system for a program. It was close; it could not take more than a few days to get there. His secret office was filled by notes about the project and he could not sleep because of the excitement.

 

  “I’m about to change everything,” he said, scant of breath. Alan Bradley was smiling at him politely: it was late in the evening, too late to roam other people’s house. It was quiet; Lora was in Washington and Jet, the Bradleys’ young son was sleeping upstairs.

 

  “I’m sorry,” the voice said. Flynn recognized it: it was the same voice which had been talking to him since cycles now, the only voice. It was trying to wake him up, it called his name and said unthinkable things about the sea… about Clu… about Sam. “I need you to come back. Forgive me for doing this.”

 

  He did not understand that: he was sitting in his pose of meditation, staring in front of him, yet not seeing anything. This was the only escape from the reality, the only way to make time pass quicker. He was going to die in this place: most of him probably had died already during the centuries. His appearance had not changed, not until he had realized that – from that point he had intentionally modified his own coding to let his digital body grow old according to the time that had passed in the real world.

 

_Forgive her for doing what?_

 

  She began to talk: from the monotonous tone he knew that she was reading.

 

  “That I ask again; for nothing can be ill, if she be well.”

 

  Something stirred deep inside him, like on the day when she had read the play aloud for the first time. His apprentice and only confidant; Flynn still yelled at her when she reached this part. She looked at him, stunned: two outcasts, away from the city – both of them deeply scarred, they tried not to hurt each other even more. And yet he screamed, not being able to hear those words again.

 

  “Stop!”

 

  The young ISO almost dropped the book.

 

  “Don’t read that book aloud again,” he asked, somewhat calmer. She obliged – until this day.

 

  “Then she is well, and nothing can be ill: her body sleeps in Capel’s monument, and her immortal part with angels lives. I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault, and presently took post to tell you: O, pardon me for bringing these ill news, since you did leave it for my office, sir.” (see note 1.)

 

  _Enough_.

 

  Regret was one thing: he regretted not paying attention to the warning signs, he regretted creating his digital clone and he regretted abandoning his family. This was something different, something worse. His memories of people, of loved ones might have been sorrowful at some point; but he could deal with that, because they were people, human beings with changing characters, different needs; sometimes they could hurt one another with no intent. The quote was a forbidden one, because it reminded him somebody that had not been human and had never wanted anything, but to serve him and the system. That one had to be forgotten, because his memory was unbearable - it reminded him of his own biggest failure.

 

 

VI.

 

  “Go,” the program said. Flynn stood stunned as the enemy emerged and began to surround them. “Flynn, go!”

 

  But he did not run: he reached for his disc and threw it toward the closest bug. The disc did not even reach the system error when he felt the floor collapsing under his feet; he grabbed the edge of the pixelating ground. Down under there was the dark, uncoded abyss: he was not sure if he could survive the fall. Above there were the sounds of a fight: the security program was unable to move away from the large opening as it would have meant abandoning Flynn. There were hisses, the sound of the disc hitting the target, again and again and a smaller explosion which rocked the ground. Then silence fell and soon the program rushed to the edge.

 

  “Come,” he said and reached down. He pulled Flynn out without any particular effort.

 

  “Are you alright?” the User asked. There were the pixelated remains of the bugs all over the place: his lost disc way lying not far from them.

 

  “Sure,” the program replied. Flynn went to pick up his disc. When he turned back he saw that the program was examining his own disc. The most deadly creature he had ever seen in the digital realm: and the most distracting one at the same time.

 

  “Tron,” he said. The program looked up. “What is that?”

 

  “If I tell you to go, go,” he replied.

 

  “What? Should I let you down?” Flynn asked.

 

  “I must to be able to handle any situation, but if you are there, I have to look out for you too. And that doesn’t help.”

 

  “Are you mad at me?” Flynn asked. Tron glanced at him with genuine surprise.

 

  “No,” he said. “Why would I be?”

 

  And when the time came, he ran; in real terror, for the first time ever on the Grid. The realization came a few seconds later: that he had left Tron facing the only opponent that he would be unable to defeat. He turned back, just in the time to see Clu making the final blow; Flynn retracted suddenly, saving himself from the sight of Tron, falling to pixels – the program’s last scream burned in his mind forever.

 

_The portal, dissolving._

_The Purge._

_The countless attempts to take back the control, the fight._

_The exile._

_Time._

 

  Back to the beginning.

 

 

VII.

 

  “So they made their decision,” Flynn said. It was his last time in the old system: the laser was going to be taken to the Arcade the day after. He was watching the city from the hilltop.

 

  “They are not coming,” Tron replied. He seemed to be tired. The User could not disguise his disappointment: he had expected both three programs, his friends to join him. The silence, which had followed his excited presentation, had been sobering. Yori, Ram and Tron had been looking at one another awkwardly and had asked for some time to consider the offer. When he saw Tron approaching alone, he knew the answer already.

 

  “What about you?” he asked, without hoping to get a positive answer.

 

  “I’m in,” Tron replied. Flynn turned to him suddenly. “I want to see your new system and I want to be the part of it. But only if I can come back to see them once in a while and if I will be allowed to return here for good if I choose to do so.”

 

  “Yes,” Flynn replied immediately, without trying to conceal his delight. And he introduced his friend to his own Grid, which, contrary to the ENCOM system, was a closed one, with larger capacity – a dark and complex empire. A quickly evolving one, especially after Clu’s creation – and a much more difficult one, following the rise of the ISOs. Flynn did not go back to the old system again: it would have been impossible to replace and use the laser without raising questions. Sometimes he took Tron back there, just to see the frustration and hurt on the program’s face when he returned. By then he knew, without asking, that whatever had been between Yori and Tron that was over.

 

  And it was flattering, to have someone around him, that was loyal and respectful, regardless of any issues, that was trying his best to please him. They were friends, even though this relationship was different from any friendship Flynn had ever had. He had surely not had a confidant before who had not been his equal, without the slightest understanding of life outside of a computer and had been walking around with the very same, youthful appearance as on the day they had first met. Tron was teaching him how to use a disc during a fight and Flynn was showing him photos of the User world and was reading from books for him. They would sit at one of the User’s lodges – some of them had been built upon Flynn’s late wife’s plans -, and Flynn would read aloud while the program would be listening to him with eyes closed. He was not sure if Tron actually understood anything of those books, those tales, plays and novels, or he just enjoyed the readings, hearing his voice. That was when something started, unspoken, yet it took one more tragedy to get there.

 

  He arrived to ENCOM in a good mood on a sunny morning: he walked in his office and his secretary brought his coffee in. Even then Flynn did not suspect that something was wrong: he was looking through his daily schedule, when they called him from the server room. He rushed there and found a group of programmers, technicians and mechanics, standing around the burnt out server. The smell of burnt plastic filled the windowless room: the accident had happened overnight, and everything had been gone by the time it had been noticed. They tried to recover any of the data, the backups, just to find everything lost and deleted. Flynn was cursing and fired everybody that was in the room; there was a shocked silence. He was working all day, along with some of the technicians: the usually cool place was hot now and smelled bad. The rest of the workers exchanged confused looks, but Flynn did not stop: he could not believe, that everything was lost, that the digital world he had known first, was gone, along with Yori, Lora Baines’ stunning creation and Ram, whom Flynn had reloaded from the backup after the program’s deresolution. This time there was no backup, no saved versions – they were dead. As the hours passed, the same thought came in his mind again and again.

 

_How will I tell him this?_

 

  Alan had a few days off, but he came in the afternoon, after somebody from the company called him. He found Flynn alone, sitting on the floor of the server room, surrounded by pieces of the disassembled machine. Just then he gave up and staggered on his feet. He saved the burnt remains of the old server; put it in a storage, hoping that they might discover a new way to recover the lost data. It was not even a hope; and it did not save him from one of the hardest conversations of his life.

 

 

VIII.

 

  Clu was furious, when Flynn returned; by then Tron had been gone since almost a centicycle: he had given back his assignment and left the city. It was unprecedented: he had never done anything like that before.

 

  _Jesus Christ, he felt it_ , Flynn thought while he was listening to Clu’s angry outburst. He ran a location query and found the security program at an empty outpost.

 

  The tower was dark when he got there, with no sign of life. It was far from the city, on the edge of the Outlands. There was a garage and a runway, next to the premises – one day this area would be the part of a larger settlement. Flynn stopped his bike farther from the walls and walked there; everything was quiet and deserted. He did not notice the program until he caught sight of the sparkling circuitry right above himself. Flynn stopped and looked up. Tron was crouching on the top of the solid barrier; he was motionless and his dark visor hid his face.

 

  “That I ask again; for nothing can be ill, if she be well,” he said. His voice was raspy and distorted through the helmet. Flynn stood there, strangely shaken by the words: by the realization that he had been listened to and understood during their readings.

 

  “Then she is well, and nothing can be ill,” he replied quietly. Tron remained silent; he began to rock back and forth slowly. A horrible, horrible sound came from behind the helmet – Flynn had never heard him crying before and for that he did not recognize it first.

 

  Like in real life, things got back to normal, after the initial devastation. Or almost so; Tron became even quieter, rather into the job, if that was even possible. Flynn believed the program was blaming him, and he could not really say anything to that: he saw Tron’s changed looks, yet he did not understand the shift until later, when they were left alone with a pile of reports. Flynn was trying to focus on the work, until he felt the program standing right behind him. Tron wrapped his arms around the User without warning; those arms could have crushed Flynn, but the embrace was awkward, if anything, awkward and affectionate.

 

  “What…?” Flynn asked. He turned around to look at the program.

 

  “Please…” Tron whispered. He seemed to be anxious and somewhat lost, like he had been the day when he had arrived to the new system for the first time.  

 

  “What is that?” Flynn asked again. The program rubbed his body against his, and again, it was ungainly, yet now Flynn got it, that it was meant to be seductive.

 

  “Don’t do this,” he asked. 

 

  “You don’t want it?” Tron asked, desperately now.

 

  “If I want this…” the User whispered. How slow, he wondered, how slowly would he understand just how it was when somebody was exiled for good. When someone had lost everyone he had known, when someone was afraid they would never be loved again. By then his hands were on Tron’s waist and the response elicited happy sounds from the program. Flynn knew that he was not supposed to be doing this, that he was the one that should have known better. But it was too tempting, the idea of having everything: to be admired in his own world, successful in his job, having a smart kid and to be accomplished in this underworld as well, with this flawless creature on his side. It was such an ambitious dream: and he fell for it.

 

 

IX.

 

  The private house had been built on the hills, with excellent sight to the city; the sounds of the closest district were audible from the wide balcony. He turned back: the spacious room was dark and silent. It had been a passion, a mere game for him to build these lodges – he had never planned to use them as hideouts, the way he did now.

 

  He walked to the couch and there he stopped; he thought Tron was recharging, but then a hand reached out for his wrist and he felt hot lips pressing against his skin. He knelt down and slipped his hand under the program’s neck. He saw the pair of eyes glowing dimly in the dark.

 

_My fantasy world is the new reality. My reality._

 

  The kiss tasted different from any kiss he could had have in the real world. The hand that pulled him closer was warmer than any human’s hand would have been: the otherwise light blue circuitry on the program’s body turned dark and then purple. He was naked under the light blanket. Flynn closed his eyes. He had not known, had not suspected that he would love once again like that, not after his wife’s death. But he did so, and it was so easy, just to give in, just to let himself to be seduced and adored.

 

  Those hands were pulling at his shirt now and those lips kissed his face: the program was learning quickly and was painfully willing. Flynn lay on him and one hand wandered down on his body; it began to fondle him through the fabric of the pants. The User groaned and he saw Tron smiling in the dark – the program was very well aware of the effect he had on him. The long fingers curled around his hardness and continued stroking it; soon he would come and they would sleep some before going back to the city. But then Tron stopped and started to push the blanket away.

 

  “What are you doing?” he asked. Tron wrapped his legs around his hips.

 

  “Do it,” he muttered.

 

  “No.”

 

  “Why?” Tron asked and his grip tightened, almost painfully.

 

  “This,” the User replied, his hand touching the program’s skin lightly, “looks like a human body. But it doesn’t work like one.”

 

  “I don’t care,” Tron resisted. Flynn kissed him.

 

  “But I do care,” he said. He thought he had won; but the program began to move slowly, rubbing his lower body against Flynn’s erection. He groaned.

 

  “You want it,” said Tron, almost cheerfully. Flynn was panting.

 

  “You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he replied. “And it doesn’t change anything if we skip that part.”

 

  Tron was kissing his face.

 

  “Do it,” he whispered. “Do it.”

 

  He tried to be careful, tried to make the necessary preparations before pushing in, he tried, as much as he was able to, while shaking from the urge. His hands and lips caressed the exposed circuitry, to make, what was coming endurable; the otherwise human-looking body under him simply had not been designed to take this. Despite all of the caution all those circuits turned white when Flynn entered him: like the program himself, his body was unable to lie. The User attempted to retract, but Tron tightened his legs around him again.

 

  “Stop,” Flynn groaned. The program’s entrance was maddeningly tight and hot around his hardness. “We don’t… have to do this.”

 

  “Please,” Tron whispered. His circuits turned blue slowly. Please what, Flynn thought as he began to move, love you? He was lost, since their very first meeting, he had just failed to admit it, even to himself. He cried out when he came; the program’s circuits made a colorful flash at the same time. Just then he realized that whatever pleasure his lover had, that came from the sensation of his, the User’s enjoyment, it was the program’s contentment over being able to provide him with such satisfaction.

 

  They slept: he woke up soon after in the dark, cool room. Tron’s body was hot and motionless next to him: had there been any kind of threat or unusual activity, he would have awakened right away, but for now he was dozing lightly. Flynn moved and he felt that the sheet was soaked under them, by warm, liquid energy. Sadness descended on him and his mind recited a quote, unbidden, from a tale he had not read to Tron, thankfully.

 

  “But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow.” (see note 2.)

 

  He blinked once.

 

  And then he woke up.

 

 

X.

 

  The chill and dimness of the room surrounded him. He was kneeling on the flat pillow in the pose of meditation. Tiny energy snippets were ascending around him, providing him with enough power to stay alive, even when he was inactive for a longer period of time; as he had been now. As the cycles passed he wandered away from reality for longer and longer; but this sleep was deeper and much more prolonged than any of them had before. Everything felt different: the coding of the system had changed.

 

  He opened his eyes. He was sitting there facing the window: the panel of energy was easy to cross if the residents of the house walked in and out, but it could have withheld an outside attack and it blocked the light and sounds of the place. Outside of the window there were the dark hills of the Outlands and Tron City beyond that: it had used to be that way. Now the city was a bubble of light in the distance; the size of the Outlands had grown significantly, as well the lit up, built in area far away. Flynn was examining the view silently, without a stir. He had dreamed and that dream had clenched his heart; yet he could not remember it, not really.

 

  The interior of the room had not changed: there was the door of his bedroom on the left and the dining area on his right. It was empty: the ISO must have gone to the city. He had not been an entertaining company lately. Thinking about her reminded Flynn of the whispered words he had heard during his sleep; about the sea, about the changes in the city… about Sam. He looked at the window again. Could any of that be true or had he dreamed it? It was impossible to tell. Flynn closed his eyes again. That dream, that had made his heart ache and had waken him up. It was a long-felt burning; it would not let him slip back into the sheltering unconsciousness.

 

  There was a soft buzz below: the elevator began to move. She must have arrived home, bringing some news and possibly some gadget with her. The illusion of life: it meant to make them forget that they were dying slowly. He looked down at his hands. Old hands with moles and wrinkles. He had let his own code to deteriorate; this way he knew that he had no chance to see his parents or people of their generation alive again; that his friends had grown old since his disappearance and his son was a grown man in the real world by now.

 

  The elevator reached the room level and stopped. Footsteps approached: Flynn recognized the sound of the high-heeled boots.

 

  “Quorra,” he whispered. “I dreamed of Tron.”

 

  She continued and walked to him, silently.

 

  “First time in years,” Flynn said.

 

  The ISO bent down next to him.

 

  “It’s a sign,” she said quietly. Her voice was sorrowful. He laughed.

 

  “A sign, my dear apprentice, of a weary soul. I’m afraid something’s happened.”

 

  Flynn felt her hand on his shoulder.

 

  “Something has happened,” she said. “We have a guest.”

 

  He stirred, for the first time now.

 

  “There are no guests, kiddo,” he replied. Quorra rose and turned, facing the entrance, expectantly. He felt disbelief: theirs was a safe place, a hidden one – had she really brought an outsider here? He stood up slowly. The floor, the ceiling and lamps lit up as he turned and looked at their guest.

 

 

XI.

 

  There was a female program standing at the elevator; she wore a figure-hugging, silver-white dress – a Siren. Her face was hidden behind a sparkling, white veil; Flynn’s innovation which ensured that the program who wore it would not recall its memories accurately later. If Quorra had given her the veil before they had taken the light runner, the Siren would remember the trip, but not the directions, turns and other distinguishing points. There was no other way for the ISO to bring anybody to the safe house without endangering their own lives: yet it was unheard, that a Siren, such an untrusting creature would risk her own safety by willing to wear that veil. She must have had a very good reason to do so.

 

  Flynn looked at Quorra inquisitively: the ISO avoided his eyes and reached for the remote control of the window. The city view disappeared behind the wall that replaced the window. Flynn walked to the Siren; he knew who she was even before he lifted the veil and saw her face. The first of her kind and the most dangerous in their surreptitious way.

 

  Gem looked him straight in the eye, without the slightest noticeable concern. For a moment she seemed to be surprised at his changed appearance, and then the usual phlegmatic expression returned.

 

  “It’s nice to see you,” he said. He glanced at Quorra who was standing at the closed window. There was sheer anger on her face.

 

_What happened?_

 

  “I have to show you something,” Gem said. “And nothing else. Then I must get my disc back and I should leave immediately.”

 

  Flynn nodded slowly. The Siren turned so he would be able to remove her disc.

 

  He felt her eyes on his face as he was standing there, with the now switched off disc in his hands. She had accomplished what she had come for and now she waited for her disc – but Flynn was grabbing the data drive with such force that the plastic almost cracked.

 

_I am not awake. This is still a dream: one of the worst nightmares._

 

  Gem was still waiting, so did the ISO that was still standing aside. The Siren reached out and held her gloved hand expectantly. Her face did not reveal, whether she had feelings about the scene which had been replayed by her disc.

 

_She was sent._

 

  Flynn gave back her disc and turned away. He heard Quorra walking there and that she replaced Gem’s disc. They left without a word.

 

  The window activated again and the view of the city came back. Deep down the hidden passage opened and the light of Quorra’s vehicle appeared, as the light runner was heading back to the city.

 

  _Sam_.

 

  The whispered words that he had heard during the sleep, made sense at once. This was the day he had secretly waited for so long, that was his only chance to escape from this world: someone to discover the office in the Arcade and open the portal. But by the time it actually happened, it was too late.

 

_He is here._

 

  The portal was closed, and yet he knew that it did not matter anymore – it was one of the things Quorra had told him before.

 

_He is here and he is with Clu know._

 

  That young man he had seen in that memory, his son, grown up now, with his parents’ best features – he must have been a programmer too. The changes about the system, the remotely controlled portal, all talked about that. And the way he took his place next to Clu.

 

_How could this happen._

He had to focus on his son and Clu, to understand what happened, and ignore the rest of the picture, for now. Sam must have come and must have been lied to… Had he been? Or he had made his decision on his own?

 

_Not my son. This is a monster._

  He could not think that way: of course it was easier, to call names, to blame others, as he had used to blame Clu for his misfortune. It just did not lead anywhere: at the end it was still him to live in exile, without plans and hopes. Now it was time to move; to end the waiting, this way or that. To go and see his son, as he had promised to return, twenty years earlier. He had not been there, when Sam had come – but Clu had been. It was not the changes about the system, it was not the fact that his son had joined Clu – all those were acceptable, things that actually made sense. But…

 

  _Don’t. Not yet._

 

  He sighed and looked at the dining table. There were bottles and pieces of dark material: samples from the sea and rocks from the Outlands. Quorra must have brought those while she had been trying to bring him back, so he could examine the changes. Flynn walked there and picked up a piece of stone: that was when he could not hold back anymore. He could not ignore the whole picture, the message which had been sent to him.

 

  “This is not what I promised you,” he whispered. Was he talking to his son, to his own younger self or to Clu – he was not sure. He felt the red-hot anger that began to burn his old soul – and he started to get ready for the departure.

 

 

XI.

 

  Flynn was standing on the balcony when the ISO came back. His white tunic was gone: he was wearing a black coat, pants and boots now. The room behind him was dark: there was nothing to say goodbye to. Now that the initial shock and indignation passed, he was able to think clearly.

 

  The system at his feet was much bigger now: it must have been on another server. The sea had been cleared up: now there was a different code that blocked the unwanted life from manifesting. The coding revealed an advanced knowledge: programming had surely developed in the last twenty years. He should have been proud now, waiting for their coming reunion; instead of that all he could feel was disdain. He doubted, he very much doubted that he would ever forget that shame he had felt when he had recognized Tron in that memory sequence. Every little detail was an additional blast; the ropes and the leash, the program’s broken expression, the outfit he wore and what had happened between Sam and him before the party – Flynn knew it, because Gem had sensed it.

 

_I saw him dying._

 

  But then, he did not. The location queries he ran later, when he was safe, were to no avail. Flynn gave up and forced himself to forget, because it was unbearable to remember him. Unbearable, just as to see that memory, the way Tron looked at the crowd when Sam forced him to face them, that the program was looking for a sympathetic face – until the laughing started. He was outraged by that reaction, another long forgotten feeling; then he realized that it had been Castor who had started it, the same person, who had sent Gem to him.

 

_He is playing all the angles again._

 

  The ISO stopped behind him.

 

  “Prepare the light runner, Quorra,” he said. “We’re going downtown.”

 

  She did not reply. She had been trying to bring him back so desperately: now, that the time came, she seemed to be scared.

 

  “Thank you for bringing her to me.”

 

  “Flynn,” she said. “You don’t need to go.”

 

  He turned to her. The ISO was shaking: she was full of anger, yet she still did not mention Sam. And it was fine, because Flynn did not want to discuss him, not now, not with her: but no outrage and anger changed the fact that that young man in the city was his son.

 

  “Quorra, there is no choice,” he said. “I won’t lose him again.”

 

  Suddenly he remembered: Sam, sitting in his chair, with that cruel smile on his face. I lost him already, he thought, and bile rose in his throat.

 

  “Chaos,” he said bitterly. “Good news.”

 

 

XII.

 

  The trip to the city was long, through the desert and then the new outer districts. It was enormous: the new buildings, the mighty boulevards and bridges. There were plenty of new programs, simple-looking, in dark, Spartan suits. After entering the inhabited area, they stopped and Flynn tapped the coding of the system: as he had suspected, his administrator license had been revoked.

 

  Quorra was driving with her eyes on the road: she was silent. He could have left her behind: had he not returned for any reason, she could have lived. The hideout was built on an energy source, which provided enough power for the two of them – but what kind of life would that have been for the ISO, alone?

 

  Flynn expected some trouble, a patrol to try and stop them, or a Recognizer to notice them. Instead of being delayed the other vehicles began to disappear as they reached the city center and the sky was clear above them.

 

_He is waiting for me._

 

  The light runner stopped in front of the tall building, the User’s residence. The place must have been busy otherwise – now there was nobody around. The staircase which led to the entrance was deserted, and the gate was open. From there he went alone. In the great hall there were programs, guards and some civilians – they quickly retracted as Flynn walked in. There were several doors to other rooms and elevators: one of them was on the first floor with open doors. He went there and stepped inside. The doors closed silently and the cabin began to ascend.

 

  _What is his plan_ , he thought. Except for the cruel message Sam had sent, there was no way for him to figure out his son’s intentions. The city itself had changed, but the mood was the same, lively, busy. Sam had put that coding into the sea, yet he had not harmed Quorra, even though he could have killed her long time ago. He could have killed Flynn himself, for the matter of fact – by now it was obvious that Sam had no such intention.

 

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened. There was a short, empty corridor and the door of a larger room. Flynn walked there; then he felt something unexpected. Tron was in the building too. The code was distant and the signal quiet: the program was probably locked up somewhere. He tried to ignore the discovery; he had to focus on the upcoming encounter.

 

  The door opened as Flynn approached, revealing a large room. It was brightly lit, unfurnished, with a full wall window on the other side. A tall figure was standing at the window, with his back to Flynn. He was dressed in black and he had short, blond hair.

 

  “Hi, Dad,” he greeted Flynn, without turning. “How are you?”

 

 

XIII.

 

  Flynn took one more step and the door closed behind him. Sam turned around and looked at him. For a moment none of them talked: the boy’s tone was sarcastic, yet he appeared to be shaken. Flynn watched him: his son from his memories was gone, and now here was this stranger, with his mother’s eyes and with almost palpable anger.

 

  “Sam,” he said. He walked toward the boy.

 

  “Don’t,” Sam warned him; he was stern – and apparently somewhat anxious too. Flynn stopped.

 

  “I got your message,” he said. The boy nodded.

 

  “Good,” he replied. “Because I’ve been waiting for a long time.”

 

  They stared at each other.

 

  “Long time,” Flynn said. “You have no idea…”

 

  “I do. We were waiting for you, for years. Now I know what happened…”

 

  “Clu happened,” Flynn said.

 

  “Yes, Dad? Your own program? That you set up to fail and even now you try to blame your own failure on him?”

 

  “What?” Flynn asked, dumbfounded. “He could not tolerate the ISO…”

 

  “We are not here to talk about the ISOs,” Sam said darkly.

 

  “He refused the idea that…”

 

  “Enough!” the boy yelled and he spat on the floor. “This is how much I care about your ISOs.”

 

  Flynn fell silent.

 

  “I don’t care about them. I saw the one you are still hiding. One alone takes a hundred times more capacity than a basic program would take and they were pouring into the system uncontrollably. You didn’t do anything and now you are trying to blame it on Clu, when he just did the job you had entrusted him with.”

 

  “They took more memory, because they were more complex, with human DNA…”

 

  The expression on his son’s face silenced him.

 

  “Human?” Sam asked. “I am human. My grandparents, whom you let down, were human. Your friends, whose work you stole, they are human. I’m sorry that you don’t recognize the difference.”

 

  “This was never my plan, never my intention.”

 

  “Does that change anything? Will that bring the dead back? Can you change the fact that I grew up without parents? Can you change the fact, that Alan Bradley has been laughed at in the last fifteen years, for trying to protect your legacy?”

 

  “No,” Flynn replied after short silence.

 

  “No, you can’t,” Sam agreed.

 

  “Those were my mistakes. You should not make it worse.”

 

  Sam snarled.

 

  “What?” he asked.

 

  “Sam, you teamed up with a murderer.”

 

  “I did not. Or do you see here any humans he could murder? Because I only see programs. But if you insist to talk about me, teaming up with Clu, then please tell me, what was I supposed to do? I was here, for the first time. I waited for you. We could have run, we could have made it. But you didn’t come. Had it been up to you, I could be trapped in a computer now, just as you are. So no, I’m not going to apologize for making my decision.”

 

  “What did you do, Sam? What did you do?”

 

  “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

 

  “Where is he?”

 

  The boy froze, then he slowly nodded.

 

  “You see?” he asked. “I knew that you would come, that you would care about him. You came because of him, not me. You came because of him, who is not more than a blinking dot on a screen, and not for me, your son.”

 

  “No,” Flynn replied. “I’m here for you.”

 

  “Good,” Sam said. “Then, for the first and the last time, do what I ask for, and get the hell out of here.”

 

  “What?”

 

  “I want you to leave the system. Now. Isn’t that what you want?”

 

  “Of course I do, but… I’m taking the ISO too.”

 

  “No,” Sam said simply.

 

  “Sam,” Flynn asked. “I understand, that you don’t want to talk about them, but she will die, if she stays.”

 

  “Good riddance.”

 

  “No. It would mean, that everything they meant, would be gone and all the suffering of the last twenty years would be for nothing.”

 

  “Why on earth would I let out a computer virus to the real world, huh?”

 

  “Sam, regardless of what you think about them, she would manifest as a human being. She would not be dangerous.”

 

  “Take it,” Sam said with a shrug. Flynn was surprised that the boy gave in so quickly, after such reluctance. “Why are you looking like that, Dad? Now it is clear that you don’t give a shit about me: you just see me after twenty years and again we are talking about your viruses. I just don’t care anymore.”

 

  “Sam, don’t say that. You are my son and I love you. Let me prove that…”

 

  “Yes, prove that. Leave the system and face all the crap you left behind. Explain your mess to everybody. And leave me alone.”

 

  “Sam…” Flynn said.

 

  “I’m serious.”

 

  “There is one more thing we have to talk about.”

 

  “No…” the boy said and turned back to the window.

 

  “Tron… I will take him too. When we are out, I will put the program on a disc…”

 

  “You won’t do such thing,” Sam replied without turning back.

 

  “Sam, what you did…”

 

  “He messed up my life. He’s not going anywhere.”

 

  “He didn’t do it. If somebody is in charge for what happened, that’s me.”

 

  “I saw his disc, so I can make that decision, thank you.”

 

  “Sam… he was not made for this.”

 

  “No? That didn’t concern you when you were screwing him.”

 

  There was a short silence.

 

  “I’m not talking about that. You expect somebody, who is not human, who has never lived in a family, to understand your hurt, your aggravation.”

 

  “He understands it, don’t worry.”

 

  “No, he doesn’t. Sam, let me take him with me. I will bring him to my place and you won’t have to deal with him anymore.”

 

  “Well, thank you, but I pretty much enjoy dealing with him. But I will be nice and I offer you a choice. You can bring one program with you when you leave, through the portal. It can be the ISO or your bitch, it’s up to you.”

 

  Sam turned and looked at Flynn with a vicious smile.

 

  “This is not a choice,” Flynn said. “A basic program would not survive the transmission, you know that. There is not enough information, the laser would tear him to pieces on the spot. Let me take the ISO, through the portal and Tron on a disc.”

 

  “One program,” Sam repeated. “Of your choice.”

 

  Flynn was looking at the window, the expanding city.

 

  “I’m taking the ISO,” he said. Sam nodded.

 

  “Fine. I’m leaving now to make the arrangements and I will return in half an hour. That will give you the equivalent of a day here, to finish whatever business you have pending here. We will get out in the ENCOM building. Don’t try to touch the computer; don’t attempt to save the bitch. It’s nighttime up there. There will be a car in the parking lot with a driver, waiting for you. In the car there will be a cell phone with the numbers of your old contacts, your lawyer, you name it, along with cash. The car will take you and the virus, if it makes it through the portal, wherever you want, and in the morning you can start reclaiming your properties. The only thing I will keep is ENCOM.”

 

  Flynn looked at his son.

 

  “Sam…” he started. The boy’s expression was grim.

 

  “This is the last time I’m talking to you,” Sam said. “Once we are out, I don’t want to see you ever again. And now, go.”

 

 

XIV.

 

  Quorra was screaming. Flynn understood her reaction: most of the ISOs had always appreciated Tron.

 

  “Tell him that you changed your mind,” she begged. They were at one of the outer districts, where Flynn had told her about his meeting with Sam. “Tell him, that you are taking Tron.”

 

  “I can’t,” he replied. He felt utter exhaustion. More things had happened to him in the previous few hours than in the last few years. “The portal is no way out for a basic. I will take you out; and out there I will have the chance to change his mind about Tron. If I choose him, he would die during the transmission – and then you would be dead too.”

 

  “But… but...” she started and then she stopped. She looked up at the buildings; at the city that she was not going to see again.

 

  He closed his eyes. He was tired: and soon he had to face the real world, a changed and developed one and his son’s hatred. He would have to make him forgive: not just for himself, but to save Tron somehow.

 

  Flynn gave Quorra a cape, before they headed back. She did not understand and he did not explain to her that it meant to hide her face from Sam. Not that his son cared: when they met at the agreed spot, the boy did not even look at them. It was an empty area: Sam was standing there, with the portal device in his hand, waiting. Quorra’s hand was shaking on Flynn’s arm as they were walking there: she took a last look at the light runner and she began to cry. He knew that she was not crying for the vehicle, but for themselves, for the way they were leaving the Grid. But there were no choices or options: they joined Sam.

 

  The boy stayed there, with his face turned away.

 

  “Sam,” Flynn said. His son did not reply. Flynn looked at the city, for one last time, before the portal activated, and the shining energy lines engulfed them.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet  
> Note 2: Hans Christian Andersen: The Little Mermaid


	6. It's Good to be King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were lights coming in from the street, when he returned to the system: he had made the necessary phone calls and arrangements from his office and then came back to make it to the agreed date. He was on time; but there was an unusual commotion around the Arcade on the Grid. He walked out and saw a few patrols and Clu’s jet hovering above the street. 
> 
> The programs bowed reverently as he exited the building. The scene did not surprise him: there were just enough spies in and around the Palace by then, it would have been a vain hope to expect Clu not to be informed about Flynn’s return.

 I.

 

  It was quiet in the apartment when they got back: the light of the rising sun filled the place. Marv rushed in immediately as the door opened. He knew his way already, just a few days after the moving. The apartment was not bigger than the container house on the river bank, yet it was different here – they were on the twentieth floor of a high-rise building in downtown. Sam had delayed the moving for weeks, until one day he got home late from work and found Marv barking wildly behind the closed doors. Sam saw nobody around the house, but he knew that it was time to move, before a curious reporter or an obsessive fan would try his luck; this happened two days after Kevin Flynn’s return had gone public.

 

  He found the new place quickly: it was way more luxurious with its countless amenities than his previous home and it was just a few blocks away the ENCOM building; it had strict security rules. Here he did not have to worry about being surrounded by photographers when he took his dog for a walk, as he did so, many times a day – even during the office lunch hour.

 

  “Why don’t you hire someone?” one of his friends asked him on a Saturday evening, when Sam was about to leave the party to make it home on time.

 

  “I didn’t get that dog so that he could stay at a kennel,” he replied and rose, despite of the vocal opposition.

 

  His windows overlooked a few office blocks and hotels; not the ENCOM building, which towered around the corner. Sam did not need it anymore, to face its view as he had been doing so in the last few years: it was not impalpable; it was not a mystery anymore, the past, the company and his father’s fate. There were cameras on the corridors and two security guards on duty on the first floor – the pool and a gym was located on the roof. It was quiet all the time: the noises of the neighbors did not make it through the walls. There were professionals, executives occupying most of the other apartments, though Sam saw families in the elevator as well. His bike was parked in the underground parking lot, along with the high-end luxury vehicles, which belonged to the other residents. The boy rented the place furnished: originally he had planned to move his belongings there, but after looking around he had changed his mind. Now the river house was locked the way he had left it, waiting for his decision. Sam only took a large box with him, filled by his books, gadgets and tools – and now he lived in a carefully designed environment, amongst contemporary furniture and accessories which had never been used before. Sometimes it felt unreal: but then, sometimes life itself felt unreal for him just the same.

 

  That night the laser deactivated with a slow hum and that sound was followed by a thud. Sam looked there and saw the ISO on her knees. The black cape covered her face and shoulders, yet her gasp was audible as the air filled her lungs for the first time and her heart took its first beat. She came through in the same attire: the black Grid suit was laughable in the real world with its cheap, plastic look and burnt out circuits. Sam watched it with some curiosity: he hoped that she would make it out of the building and would not die on the floor of the server room.

 

  His father kneeled down next to the ISO and helped her on her feet. Sam caught his quick glance at the computer.

 

  “Son,” he started, but Sam was opening the door already.

 

  “Get out,” the boy said. They were facing each other silently for a moment: then the ISO staggered again and Flynn turned to her.

 

  The corridor was empty, as it was supposed to, so was the elevator. Sam looked at them once more as they were standing under the white lights: his father and his companion – he was saved, the boy thought, if there had ever been a debt that was cleared now. He stepped ahead, into the cubicle for a moment, to push the button for the parking space. Then he retracted without a word; the quickly closing doors hid his father’s incredulous face from him.

 

  He stood there for a minute, facing the closed metal doors, listening to the deep buzz. Then he took a breath and started to head back to the server room. Just when he reached for the door handle he saw that his hand was shaking.

 

 

II.

 

  The day after Alan Bradley did not show up for work, he did not even call. Sam let him be and told Alan’s secretary not to start paging him; then he went back to his own duties. He found his attention wandering again and again. It was busy at the office and yet it was peaceful: nobody knew about the upcoming revelation.

 

  It was almost three in the afternoon, when Alan arrived. Sam looked up at him as he walked in his office.

 

  “Rough night?” the boy asked. Alan Bradley seemed to be exhausted and anxious. His eyes were red and Sam assumed that was not for the lack of sleep.

 

  “Sam…” Alan said, “I’m coming from your father.”

 

  Sam leant back in his seat and smiled at his friend.

 

  “Yes, I know,” he replied. Alan opened his lips, and then he remained silent. He slipped in a chair.

 

  “I know, that you are tired,” the boy said. “I will need you to be here tomorrow morning. I have a few new plans I have to show you.”

 

  Alan was staring at him.

 

  “Sam,” he said. “What’s going on here?”

 

  “How do you mean?”

 

  “Your father, who’s been missing in the last twenty years, came back last night.”

 

  “I’m aware of that, Alan,” Sam laughed. He was not particularly happy, but the expression on Alan’s face amused him. “What did he tell you?”

 

  “He said that you had brought him back. And that you refused to talk to him. “Alan was contemplating. “He was very cryptic about his return and his absence. Sam, what happened?”

 

  Sam crossed his arms in front on himself.

 

  “He said that you had brought him back,” Alan said slowly, “But he refused to reveal the details and the reasons behind his trip… Because I assume he was not around during all these years?”

 

  “No,” the boy said slowly. “He was not.”

 

  “Where did you find him?” asked Alan. Sam shook his head.

 

  “Alan, the main reason I’m happy for his return is that now he will have to face the results of his irresponsibility, that he will have to answer all the questions. I found him and brought him back. And it cost me. With all your other questions, you have to see him.”

 

  Alan seemed to be considering the words and then he nodded.

 

  “I see,” he said. “I understand that you are upset, but eventually you will have to talk to him.”

 

  “No, I don’t.”

 

  “I gave him your number.”

 

  “What?”

 

  “He asked for it and I gave it to him. Why are you so reluctant, Sam? You do care for your father, I know. You even reserved that room in the Westin…”

 

  “I figured that he wouldn’t be able to get one without identification,” Sam interrupted. “Don’t draw further conclusions from that.”

 

  Alan stood up and walked to the window. He was silent for a few minutes.

 

  “Does that girl have something to do with this?” he asked quietly.

 

  “Oh, so she made it?” Sam asked, grinning.

 

  “What?”

 

  “Nothing.”

 

  Silence fell again.

 

  “I’ve been waiting for this day,” Alan said finally, without turning. “I imagined it very differently. But it’s alright, for now. I hope you will both come to terms, sooner or later.”

 

  The boy did not respond; he was playing with a pen.

 

  “I will be here tomorrow morning, to discuss your plans,” Alan said and he left. Sam was sitting behind his desk; he had things to do, and still he was just sitting there, deep in his thoughts.

 

 

 

 

III.

 

  There was an actual shift of charge when Flynn entered the city: Sam knew that he was coming before the first reports of the unidentified light runner appeared on his data pad. Would he have felt that, he wondered, after the first surge of anxiety passed, had his father come when he had been on the Grid for the first time? These days he was more familiar with the structure of the system, with the way the energy flew and concentrated at places.

 

_He is coming._

 

  The vehicle crossed the outer districts undisturbed: the patrols and the crews of the Recognizers in the area followed the orders. As the route of the light runner became calculable, they closed the streets, so the vehicle would make its way to the Palace without having to get in the downtown traffic. Then it appeared and rolled to the gate down there; it was too far to actually see it – but it was there.

 

_We’re going home._

 

  But that was not true: his father would leave this place soon, yet there would not be happy homecoming and reunion. A child would have such hopes, about getting back to that long-felt safety, to that old world which was so simple. He was not a child anymore and that other life was lost for him for good.

 

  The elevator was moving; programmed to take its passenger to the right level. How would he be, Sam was thinking, how would he look like? Would he remember him, Sam at all? Would he be hostile? There were footsteps behind the door and Sam turned to the window, to delay the meeting for one more moment. Behind him the door opened and the guest entered the room.

 

  “Hi Dad,” he said. “How are you?”

 

  He was still furious, still frustrated when the conversation ended and he was left alone again: it did not help that he could say those bitter words after all. He felt confusion as well, and it angered him; was not he right? Did not he win everything? And still, it was not enough.

 

  Sam walked out of the room, slowly. He had time for now: once on the other side, he would have to hurry, to make the phone calls and arrange things quickly, to be back for the date set – but for now, it was fine. Just at the entrance of his private quarters he wakened; he was unsure why he even went back there now.

 

  The lights turned on when he walked in. His room was more comfortable now, with more furniture and different placement of the lights. On the bed Tron was lying, his hands tied to the headboard, the way Sam had left him. The program was recharging; that was the only way for him to escape from reality. Once left alone, he must have reintegrated his suit – not that he had been allowed to do so. The silver-white dress now covered the bite marks and scratches on his body; Sam had been nervous earlier and that had made him exceptionally ruthless.

 

  He stopped next to the bed. His thoughts were getting back to the previous meeting again and again, to what his father had told about this creature. Sam looked down at him: the program’s last chance to get away from here was gone – and he did not even know about it. His eyes were closed and his face was peaceful; Sam felt the urge to reach there and touch it - then he did not move. It would have been hard to stop then, and he wanted to think with clear head now.

 

  So this was his father’s decision: choosing his digital creatures instead of his own son and friends. Or was it the other way and there was a chance to forgive and accept forgiveness? There was so much anger in Sam, he could not even tell. Silently he turned and walked out of the room.

 

 

IV.

 

  There were lights coming in from the street, when he returned to the system: he had made the necessary phone calls and arrangements from his office and then came back to make it to the agreed date. He was on time; but there was an unusual commotion around the Arcade on the Grid. He walked out and saw a few patrols and Clu’s jet hovering above the street.

 

  The programs bowed reverently as he exited the building. The scene did not surprise him: there were just enough spies in and around the Palace by then, it would have been a vain hope to expect Clu not to be informed about Flynn’s return.

 

  “What a nice surprise,” Sam said when Clu appeared and began to walk to him.

 

  “You met Flynn,” the system administrator said; his usual, unimpassioned stance was gone. “You came now to take him out of the system.”

 

  “Yes.”

 

  “I want to meet him,” Clu said. It was not a request, but a statement – his manner reminded Sam of the monarch he had met during his first visit to the Grid.

 

  “No,” he replied. Surprise shaded Clu’s face. Their relationship had become rather cold, professional during the cycles and they both pretended that their actions were merely based on logic. That glaze of indifference was gone now and Clu was demanding.

 

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he said.

 

  “I know,” Sam replied. “And yet, it isn’t going to happen.”

 

  “What?” Clu asked incredulously. “We have unfinished business.”

 

  “I know that too. But he is nothing of what he had used to be, and he would not give you the answers you are waiting for. And I will not let him perish in some quarrel that might occur, should you two meet. I’m sorry. What he could tell you, that wouldn’t change anything. But he must face the devastation he had left behind on the other side.”

 

  The system administrator was thinking, considering.

 

  “So I’m not getting anything,” he concluded, his growing frustration was written on his face.

 

  “No. You are getting everything,” the boy said. He nodded at the buildings around them. “You created the perfect system, glorious over the User that tried to interfere. And you have the system now, the control over it and the reassurance that your work would make great difference in the User world, soon. You have…” Sam fell silent; suddenly he did not feel like telling the name, did not feel like finishing the sentence. Clu must have sensed what he had wanted to say, because he stirred, unintended.

 

  “Please,” Sam said. “You have won already. He failed the system in every possible way. Let me bring him home, so he can see the whole extent of his failure. Let’s close this part now, and move ahead.”

 

  Clu was silent, deliberating. Sam waited for his answer: had he been a simple program, he would have agreed already – but Clu was not one. They were standing there for quite a while, without uttering a word, before the system administrator nodded lightly and turned away. He walked to his jet which descended now. The guards and patrols left the scene as well. The boy sighed and began to head toward the agreed spot.

 

 

V.

 

  He stopped talking and it was quiet for a while; Alan was looking at the sketches and lines of numbers which appeared on the screen of the tablet. After long minutes he looked up at the boy.

 

  “Is this really working?” he asked.

 

  “There is no way of telling that, before the prototype is built,” Sam replied. “According to the numbers, yes.”

 

  Alan returned to the virtual data sheets, his face was tense from the concentration.

 

  “Is this nanotechnology?” he asked.

 

  “You mean, are there little people in the machine, doing the job?” Sam asked with a smile. “No, it is a simple gadget.”

 

  “Simple…?” Alan asked with the same stunned expression on his face which had been there since the beginning of the conversation. “Simple, once it is discovered and everybody just wonders why they didn’t come up with it before – like all the vital new things. But until then? These plans are really complex and presume rather advanced mathematical knowledge.”

 

  “Yes.”

 

  “From where are these sketches?”

 

  “Computer animation.”

 

  “What?” Alan asked. “This can not be a simple animation. Dozens of skilled engineers must have worked on this for long.”

 

  “Well, it isn’t simple, if you insist,” Sam replied. “But there are no other people involved.”

 

  Alan leant back in his chair.

 

  “They will not let you do this,” he said.

 

  “Why are you saying that?” Sam asked. He was actually entertained by the reactions.

 

  “Do you remember the EV1?”

 

  “The electric car?” Sam asked. “What about it?”

 

  “This thing will get to the same end, and you can get in trouble for it.”

 

  “What?”

 

  “Sam, you are trying to build an equipment, which will considerably reduce the gas consumption of motor vehicles.”

 

  “Right.”

 

  “Every related invention had been hijacked before. There are too many people interested in keeping the things the way they are. The loss of oil companies would be inestimable.”

 

  “And do I care?”

 

  “You will, when they come after ENCOM. They might not bring you down, but they will make our work impossible.”

 

  “Well, this toy is not for cars, not at the first place. It goes between the source of energy and the consumer unit. It will have a version that will be attached to the power outlet on the wall as an adapter.”

 

  “A version? You just said that the first prototype should be the car-compatible variant.”

 

  “I told you, yes. Nobody else needs to know, for now. Let’s see the team’s opinion on the plans first.”

 

  “What if they are capable to build it? If it is working?” Alan asked.

 

  “Then we will start the construction and the testing.”

 

  “With ENCOM? With a computer technology company? What about the shareholders?”

 

  “When did they say no to a fat check? And this will pay well.”

 

  They were looking at each other. Sam had expected questions, concerns, yet it was more than that, it was reluctance.

 

  “Why are you worried?” he asked. “There is a risk, yes. But it will happen, and when it does, that will bring a lot of changes. The emission of exhaust fumes will diminish, slowly, but surely.”

 

  “Surely?”

 

  “Are you thinking about the electric car again?”

 

  “People didn’t even know that it existed. By the time they learnt about it, the EV1s were crushed. Let’s face the truth, an ordinary person doesn’t really care about the environment. All they care for is their daily hamburgers and cheap gas,” Alan said. There was such bitterness in his voice that it made Sam wonder. His friend had faced too many failures, too many disappointments; Sam was not going to let that happen again.

 

  “I know,” he said. “But gas is not cheap anymore. They don’t care about the environment? Well, they will care about the money they will save with this device. It will not be that difficult: it will not require them to buy a new car, because it will be easily attached. And the price will pay back, after a few weeks. Because it does matter if your car runs for a week with one tank or for six months.”

 

  “For six months? With one tank?”

 

  “You saw the numbers.”

 

  They were silent for a while again.

 

  “What do you think?” Sam asked.

 

  “I am amazed, of course,” Alan replied. “And I have still hard time believing that this comes from an animation. Computers are not this smart.”

 

  Sam smiled at him without answering.

 

  “Last time I felt like this was when I talked to your father, before his disappearance.”

 

  “This is not fair, Alan.”

 

  “The same fever, the same bright ideas…”

 

  “No. Because those ideas had nothing to do with reality. He had never used his resources properly. What did he give to the world? An operating system and a few computer games. Great ideas, speeches and books… But where were the results? Don’t make a comparison.”

 

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. You are still his son, and you care for the world just the same.”

 

  “For the world, yes. What about the people that lived around him? Did he care about them? Did he care about us?”

 

  “And you?” Alan asked. “Do you care for the people that live around you?”

 

  “You are not being fair.”

 

  “I used to, and it didn’t make any good,” Alan agreed. He put the tablet on the desk. “You are not talking to him.”

 

  “No.”

 

  “They got a house, up in the hills. It is very private, a fine place to stay until they get everything fixed for his official return.”

 

  “Good,” Sam said with a blank face.

 

  “He has so many plans. Yet he has many issues at the same time. He gets exhausted quickly and he is very much hurt by your refusal.”

 

  The boy did not reply. Alan sighed.

 

  “Can I expect your support when I introduce this plan to the board tomorrow?” Sam asked.

 

  “Yes,” Alan responded. The boy nodded and he rose. The conversation ended.

 

 

VI.

 

  “A delegation came, Sire,” the program said. “They are asking for an audition.”

 

  Sam looked at her. Jayden was standing next to him. She had put away her data pad already.

 

  “What do they want?” he asked. He had spent long time with preparing to the next day; introducing the new plans to the ENCOM team. He had returned to the Grid in the evening and since then he had been on a meeting with engineer programs.

 

  “They want to talk to you, Sire. They say, it is about issues concerning the city.”

 

  “Tell them to talk to Clu. I don’t deal with the inner affairs of the system,” Sam shrugged.

 

  “I did, Sire, and still, they insist. One of their issues is Clu, apparently.”

 

  Sam looked at her again. He still remembered the surprise he had felt when he had found Jayden after the arrival of the new programs.

 

  “Who are they?”

 

  “Their spokesman is a high-ranked administrator. I saw there System Utilities and other workers.”

 

  “I don’t have time for them,” Sam said. Jayden nodded and left, leaving Sam alone at the observation deck of the Palace. He felt immeasurable exhaustion: he was grateful for the different timekeeping of the system; for that he could rest properly before the presentation in the morning. Yet he stayed there, wondering.

 

  He had not expected to find a program with his own look, at the carrier ship – the carrier ship that he had handled as a hard drive, just a few minutes before. Or had he? He had not made any configurations regarding the new programs’ look and there should not have been any expectations. It was still stunning to find there a program with feminine look and with a personality which was completely different from her User’s. Her loyalty was unquestionable; Jayden followed and executed his orders without any hesitation and her capabilities were remarkable as well. She was not a hacker program; she was just the opposite, a modified firewall application. During the breach at ENCOM she did not break into the network, but deceived the target and appeared as part of the security system, exposing it to the actual attack. As a complex security application, whose only goal was to follow the User’s orders, she was chosen to be the warden of the Palace.

 

  Sam remembered the night of the reception: the way the laughter filled the room. He released Tron and looked around. Most of the programs in the crowd were laughing; others were neutral, rather anxious. Some of them exchanged looks: Clu, who was standing next to Sam, was watching the interactions. Why, Sam thought, maybe this scene would turn out to be useful in more than one way. Then he looked at Jayden and saw that she had not joined the general cheerfulness – on the contrary, disapproval was all over her face.

 

  Later Sam summoned her and the program arrived without delay. As always, she looked very simple in her black coat and with her dark braid.

 

  “Are you concerned about what happened at the reception?” he asked. Jayden glanced at him and remained silent. By then Sam was familiar enough with programs’ behavior to understand the reaction: not being allowed to lie she rather did not respond to avoid disappointing the User.

 

  “Do you feel sorry for him?” he asked. Jayden shrugged.

 

  “Isn’t he a traitor?” she asked.

 

  “He is.”

 

  “Then he deserves whatever punishment you impose on him, Sire,” she responded immediately. Yet there was something else and Sam was looking at her expectantly.

 

  “Well,” Jayden said hesitantly, “He was a security program, wasn’t he?”

 

  “That’s correct.”

 

  She nodded. Sam understood her reaction now: the solidarity of one program for another, which had been immediately overwritten by the loyalty to the User. Overwritten, but not deleted. He nodded too and dismissed the warden.

 

 

VII.

 

  There was a short silence in the large, bright room when the presentation ended. Then everybody began to talk at the same time, men and women, technicians and designers. Even Alan seemed to be stunned: the detailed explanation along with the projections made an even greater impression on him, though he had been told everything before.

 

  “Is this possible?” somebody yelled. Others were discussing the details of the upcoming designing process already.

 

  “This is a tech company, for God’s sake,” a faceless voice said at the other end of the table.

 

  “And?” Sam asked. There came no answer, yet he got the hint. “I’m not forcing any of you to take part in this. This is an offer, an opportunity, to be a part of something bigger. Something well paying, if you prefer that way.”

 

  They went quiet. The boy looked at the reddened faces, the excited expressions. For a moment he felt sorry for not being able to show them to Clu and the engineer team on the Grid.

 

  “An opportunity for us, or for you?” Junior asked. He had not spoken since the beginning of the presentation. Now he was very focused, calculating.

 

  “What does that supposed to mean?” Sam asked back. “Everybody, who chooses to participate, will receive the credit and the compensation for their work. All the others can walk out of this room and return to their projects.”

 

  “From where are these plans coming? “ Junior asked.

 

  “What?”

 

  “Only this presentation must have taken a month to put together, and then we didn’t mention the invention itself. You are here since what… six weeks?”

 

  Sam looked at him. The look on Junior’s face was challenging. _Six weeks_ , Sam thought, _contrary to the years he spent here_.

 

  “As I said, any of you can go back to their current projects,” he replied. “The world is waiting for the OS-13.”

 

  He could not and did not really intend to disguise the sarcasm in his voice. Junior gave him a hateful glance, but he did not rise from his chair. He turned back to the blinking numbers on the plastic table in front of him: he was calculating already and sheer greed was on his face.

 

  After the meeting, after the official launch of the new research Alan and Sam walked toward the offices together.

 

  “This went well,” Alan said.

 

  “Yes. Thank you for your support and for the advices.”

 

  “Sure thing… I wouldn’t miss it anyway.”

 

  The boy saw that Alan’s mind was somewhere else.

 

  “What is that?” he asked. “It’s him again, huh?”

 

  Alan took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

 

  “Sam,” he said. “You two are both very important to me.”

 

  “I’m fine with that.”

 

  “But you need to know, that not answering his phone calls will not keep him out of your life, not for long.”

 

  “How do you mean that?”

 

  “He obtained his papers and many of his belongings already. Soon his return will be public, and there will be appearances.”

 

  “Oh,” the boy said. “That is fast.”

 

  “And that will affect the company. Especially since…”

 

  “Since?”

 

  “Sam, he wants ENCOM back.”

 

  The boy laughed.

 

  “I’m serious.”

 

  “I know that. Don’t worry, Alan. That’s not going to happen.”

 

  “I’m not… worried,” Alan said. “I’m not exactly sure, what my opinion in this case is. He is very upset about the situation.”

 

  “I bet he is. Well, he is not going to get it back. If that’s everything, see you later.”

 

  He went back to his office and sat down. How curious, he thought, that he should be enlightened by the meeting, and instead of that his thoughts were going back to his father and the news Alan had just told him. The previous scene reminded him of the last time he had talked to Flynn. One day he just arrived home from the office, when his cell phone started ringing. His hands were full with grocery bags and he picked up the phone without checking the caller ID.

 

  “Sam,” he heard the familiar, disbelieving voice. Before that the boy had kept on ignoring his father’s calls. He wanted to hang up immediately – but his fingers did not move, he was just holding the phone silently. That voice on the phone was measured, calm, clearly trying not to upset him. He found himself not paying attention to what his father was telling him; he was just standing there, shaking lightly.

 

  “I don’t care,” he replied, when Flynn stopped. “I don’t care about your excuses, explanations or regrets. We’re even now. Don’t try to contact me ever again.”

 

  “What you’re doing is wrong, son.”

 

  “That’s what you are saying. Like I care.”

 

  There was a short silence, and Sam began to hope that his father hung up the phone.

 

  “You wouldn’t dare to do this,” Flynn said finally. This time he sounded different, angry. “Had you met Tron while he was his old self, you wouldn’t even dare to approach him.”

 

  The remark was unexpected and Sam was speechless for a second. His perplexed hesitation gave him away and his father must have sensed that there had been such encounter, with an indeed unfavorable outcome for Sam.

 

  “Oh,” Flynn said. “I see.”

 

  “It didn’t carry him very far,” Sam said cheerfully. His father burst.

 

  “Is this how you’ve been raised?” he yelled. “Have you been taught to abuse and torture others?”

 

  “How do you dare to say anything about the way I’ve been raised? Were you there?” yelled back Sam, and flung his phone against the wall without waiting for a reply. Ha changed his cell phone number: still there was a call at his office every day, around 9.30 in the morning. His secretary was told not to transfer Flynn’s calls ever, and many times the boy was sitting at his desk, listening to her, saying that Sam was not in his office. There was never a message, but the call came every morning, on every weekday. Sam wanted to rejoice over these little victories; but there was no delight, only the sensation of loss.

 

 

VIII.

 

  “He’s okay,” he said, “I guess.”

 

  Clu was waiting, but Sam did not have anything to add. The questions were alright, especially since Sam owed the program, after Clu had given in and had let Flynn go.

 

  “Seriously? I have no idea, how he will pull this off. After centuries of half-existence, now to deal with lawyers, real estate, copyrights and the changed world… I just don’t know.”

 

  Sam felt some odd relief about being able to tell that. Before that he could not express his feelings, because there was nobody in his world who knew the real story behind Flynn’s absence.

 

  The system administrator curtly nodded. They were in the office tower, after a meeting with the Grid’s designers.

 

  “Is the ISO still alive?” Clu asked. First he had been genuinely surprised, when Sam had admitted that he had taken the last ISO program to the User world, along with Kevin Flynn; now this was simply a programmer’s curiosity.

 

  “I hope so, actually. By now it must have learnt, how thankful it is to be Flynn’s creature.”

 

  “Why?”

 

  “Because there is a lot more difference between our worlds than one might think. Up there you have a flesh and blood body, a perception called smelling, and a society with very different rules and ways. It is simply not for purely logical entities; the slickest program of the system would be the most naïve person in the User world. Soon the ISO would think of the fate of its kind as a very merciful one.”

 

  Clu did not reply. At this time he had the system entrusted to him, a system, cleaned up from the ISOs at last and left by its original Creator. His victory was complete, yet, he did not seem to be content nor unhappy. He was pleased by the news about the latest invention of the Grid - another thing he had been right about. Sam felt somewhat odd about the fact, that the one who probably understood his feelings at that point was a program that wore his father’s face.

 

  The streets were busy, brightly lit. It was raining; the pavement was wet and there were heavy clouds on the digital sky. Soon there would be fundamental changes in the real world, and nobody there would know from where all that came, nobody would know about the Grid – except for Flynn. _Was it like this_ , the boy wondered, _did he drive along these streets the way I do it now, did he think about all the possibilities?_ All the ideas that had never come true – all the time wasted.

 

  On the way back to his residence he began to relax. His thoughts wandered at last, away from the invention, from ENCOM, from his father; back to Tron. By then Sam forgot everything – all the lies – he had ever thought about him; if the program had ever been anything else, but the tool of his revenge. Tron was learning quickly and gave up every attempt to communicate with Sam, as no begging made any difference ever, and no screaming stopped the User. He had tried constantly, until Clu updated his code, awkwardly, mumbling incoherently – and once after he got fixed.

 

  Sam remembered that day: the surprise he had felt when he saw Tron. It was not just the fact that the program was standing there on his own, but the way Tron looked at him, straight in the eye, without any sign of fear. It was unsettling, for a moment, then the boy began to walk there to take a closer look. He nearly forgot that they were almost of the same height. The program took a step back.

 

  “I want to talk to my User,” he said. Sam stopped. He was really amused by then. Slowly he circled around the program. He recalled the day when they had last faced each other like that, that day in the Arena; the pain, his own fear. Now, after all that had happened to him, the program showed no dismay; he even talked emphatically. Sam felt tempted to put his hand on that slim waist, to drag him to the bed and see, how long it would take to wipe off that calm expression and replace it with terror and pain. Usually he did not bother to reply when addressed, but this was going to be entertaining, so he stepped in front of the program.

 

  “Fine,” he said. “Talk.”

 

  Tron appeared to be confused for a second.

 

  “My User is Alan-One,” he said, with unmistakable pride in his voice. Sam felt irritated: it was annoying that the program actually dared to say Alan’s name.

 

  “Wrong,” Sam replied. “I’m your User.”

 

  Incomprehension shaded Tron’s face again.

 

  “My User…” he started again.

 

  “I’m your User,” Sam said impatiently. “I bought you from Alan.”

 

  For a moment he was not sure if the program would understand: money was unknown in the system, where energy and other basic necessities of life were free. One could make bets in the Arena and earn credit, and those points could be used to purchase special items, extra energy or tickets to private events. But seeing Tron’s expression he knew that the program understood him just fine. The fearless look melted away and the program began to tremble.

 

  “…sold me?” he asked, his voice was stifled.

 

  “Why?” the boy asked. “What did you expect? Nobody likes traitors.”

 

  Tron staggered as if he had been punched. His previous steadiness disappeared in a blink of an eye and the program burst out in tears. Sam was watching him as he fell on his knees, sobbing uncontrollably. The boy walked away, took off his jacket and looked at his data pad for one last time. Tron was still on his knees when he turned back to him. Sam had never seen a grown man crying like that – but then, this creature was not a human. Sam remembered how shamelessly he had seduced Flynn, craving for the User’s attention. Now he got all the attention he just wanted.

 

  He reached down, seized the program’s arm and yanked him on his feet. Tron saw what was coming and looked at the boy with tears in his eyes. He was distractingly gorgeous; that reminded Sam that it took less and less time to get to this point, from where he could not turn back, even if he wanted. Not that he wanted; not that he ever considered it. The boy twisted Tron’s arm behind his back and began to push him toward the bed. The program resisted, but the soft soles of his white footwear were sliding on the smooth floor. Sam threw him on the mattress; until that day that was all he had to do. This time Tron slid down from the bed on the other side and scampered away immediately. He ran to the farthest corner of the room.

 

  “Is this what we are going to play now?” Sam asked as he was walking after him. Tron huddled himself in the corner. The boy stopped and pulled out his belt. The program uttered a quiet, disgraced sound. Sam looked at him and saw that he was staring at the belt. It took him a second to realize that the program was in fear of getting a beating with that belt.

 

  He stepped ahead and grabbed one of Tron’s hands. Sam dragged him back to the bed and hooked the belt around his wrists quickly.  In no time Tron was on his back, with his hands tied together and to the headboard. He was very quiet now. The boy’s fingers trailed down on his thighs, along the bright, blue single circuit lines on the white suit. The long legs trembled under his hands and closed. Those limbs were strong enough now to support the program’s own body; and that was it. Sam was wondering if Clu had done the upgrade out of pity or if Tron had paid the price. He looked up. He found it almost funny, how everybody fell for this angelic face. Almost.

 

  Sam felt the taste of energy when his lips touched the program’s skin; the tears he had shredded. The white collar of the Siren suit dissolved under his hands and he buried his face there, pressed to Tron’s neck. Sam was moving slowly, enjoying every moment. His knees slipped between the program’s legs easily. More of the white dress disappeared upon his touches and he began kissing the soft skin. He moved lower and lower, taking his time with the exposed circuits on Tron’s chest and then his belly. The program was whimpering quietly; the energy lines on his skin were flickering light blue.

 

  The silver-white suit still covered Tron’s waist and legs; Sam started to stroke his inner thighs. The program made an involuntary attempt to close his legs again; with Sam on top of him he only managed to tighten his legs around the boy. Sam groaned. He reached out for a pillow and began to tuck it under Tron’s hips. The program was making low-pitched, sad sounds. Sam pulled up Tron’s legs and got rid of his own attire; his hardness pressed against the program’s clothed backside. He was waiting; Tron was still afraid to see him naked and for now he was lying there with half-lidded eyes, his face turned away. Finally he moved and looked up at Sam. His remaining clothes derezzed and the boy pushed inside him. Tron cried out, short and sharp.

 

  Sam entered him fully and leant ahead, supporting himself on his elbows. It was more than enjoyable; Tron was pinned down by the User’s weight and with his widely spread legs, with the pillow under his hips he was exposed like never before. The boy was moving firmly, losing the rhythm and speeding up again and again: it was too hot, too tight, the defenseless body under him. He buried his fingers in the program’s hair and kissed him on the lips. The touch of the dark locks was alien; suddenly he remembered what it felt like – not hair, but softer than that: wet seaweed. The disturbing idea disappeared quickly, the way it had surfaced.

 

  His fingers sank deep in Tron’s skin as he was trying to find the rhythm for the last, erratic thrusts. The boy was panting and groaning heavily. He stayed there for a while after he came and then he pulled out with a sigh. Just then he felt the exhaustion; he lay down next to the program that turned his face away. He was awake long enough to see the lights going out.

 

 

IX.

 

  The phone began to ring and receive the messages while they were out with Marv for a walk in the morning. He picked it up, but could hardly understand anything from a not exactly close friend’s babbling. He disregarded the other calls, apparently from friends, TV channels and blocked numbers and scrolled down for a message from Alan.

 

  “Oh,” he said. That was the day when his father’s return went public.

 

  There was a great tumult around the ENCOM building. Satellite vans and other vehicles arrived, a large group of the ‘Flynn Lives’ movement had gathered already.

 

  “What do they want?” Sam asked, when he got in, through the second parking lot. “Do they think that he is coming here?”

 

  “Probably not,” Alan replied. They were in Sam’s office, looking at the television. There was live broadcast on many news channels. The phones were ringing in the offices, most of them remained unanswered.

 

  “What is that?” the boy asked.

 

  “The ENCOM stocks plunged right after the announcement,” Alan explained. “There will be a board meeting in the afternoon.”

 

  “Why is that? His return wouldn’t affect the ENCOM operations.”

 

   “It was still unexpected, and the stock market doesn’t like surprises. Now everybody is waiting for his press conference. Then they will know what to expect.”

 

  “And what should I expect?” Sam asked.

 

  “How do you mean that?”

 

  “You knew that this was coming, didn’t you?”

 

  “I knew, that it was going to happen today, yes,” Alan said, “But I don’t know about his plans. I don’t know what he will be saying.”

 

  “Really?”

 

  “Sam, I am working for this company. I am not going to choose between the two of you, not in our lives outside of this office. But when I am here, I am an ENCOM employee. He knows that too. Yes, I saw him yesterday; but I have no idea about his plans regarding the company.”

 

  The boy nodded. Alan put his hand on his shoulder.

 

  It was not unexpected, yet it was shocking to see his father on the screen of the television. Flynn was wearing a dark suit with a tie. He was more or less looking the same as he had been on the Grid – and he was entirely different. He was looking normal, was looking to be alive, contrary to his slowed down presence in the system. It was not announced and it was impossible to tell upon the footage, where the press conference took place. The two of them listened to the broadcast until it ended, without uttering a word.

 

  Sam went home before the board meeting. He parked his bike outside of the river house and let his dog out. The boy was deep in his thoughts: he was thinking about Flynn’s appearance, about the things he had talked: about his absence that should not be discussed for now, about great, not computer-related discoveries. About a new company; which was not going to be a rival to existing tech companies, but would take a completely different initiative.

 

  The boy was walking around his place absently. He wondered how much time he was left with, before he would be forced to move. He took out food and water for Marv and a beer for himself. His father had not mentioned him during the press conference, not even when he had been asked.

 

  He touched the shelves, the toys, the gadgets and the books. He picked up a volume, opened it and began to read.

 

 _“In my beginning is my end. In succession_  
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,  
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place  
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.  
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,  
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth  
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,  
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.  
Houses live and die: there is a time for building  
And a time for living and for generation  
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane  
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots  
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.”*

 

  Later that day he got a phone call from the legal department of the company, about the lawsuit which had been filed against him by the law office that represented Flynn, over ENCOM.

 

  “The wind to break the loosened pane,” he whispered, standing on the porch after he hung up the phone. The sky was dark above the city. A storm was coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *T.S. Eliot: Four quartets


	7. Uprising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The silhouette of a program was there, dark and unrecognizable first; then it became apparent quickly. It was a warrior in black outfit and with faint blue circuit lines. He held his activated disc in his hand, ready to lunge and strike. His face was obscured; Clu took a step ahead to observe the projection. He was late to realize that the silent combatant was ready to attack – he raised his disc and swung ahead. The glowing disc hit the frame and shattered it with a tinkling sound. And the mirror fell to pieces.

I.

 

  The first sensation of his existence was the ability to see: he saw the dark emptiness around himself and the lights of a settlement in a far distance. Before him it was a flat frame – a mirror, he thought; his hand was resting against the surface, even though he did not remember reaching there and touching it. But that idea did not make sense and even then, in the midst of his initial confusion he recognized that the thought had come from an alien part of him, from a part which did not belong to this place. His senses activated rapidly: he was kneeling on the smooth ground, facing the frame, facing someone who shared his own features, yet was entirely different from him; he was the Creator. _User. Kevin Flynn._ He was kneeling in the same pose: then Flynn straightened himself. After a moment of hesitation he followed suit and the frame retracted. They were standing there, facing each other.

 

   --- _glitch_ \---

 

 “You are Clu,” the Creator said. That made sense; that explained the odd memory fragments which were among his files and otherwise logical inner structure.

 

  “I’m Clu,” he repeated, and his voice was the exact copy of Flynn’s. The designation done, he was waiting for a task already.

 

  “You will create the perfect system,” the order came.

 

  “I will create the perfect system,” he said. The extent of the assignment was enormous; and he knew that he was capable of executing it. The idea filled him with pride and excitement immediately.

 

  Flynn laughed; the stern look disappeared and gave its place to a rather cheerful expression. His hands squeezed Clu’s shoulders genially.

 

  “Together we’re gonna change the world, man,” Flynn said and he responded with a smile. Beyond the dark plains the lights of Tron City were blinking invitingly. That place meant home for him, even though he had never seen it with his own eyes before.

 

   --- _glitch_ \---

 

  He could not tell what caused the constant error message and that was alarming. This time the lapse left him at place, but the Creator disappeared. Clu was standing at the empty frame again; except for the frame was not empty. The silhouette of a program was there, dark and unrecognizable first; then it became apparent quickly. It was a warrior in black outfit and with faint blue circuit lines. He held his activated disc in his hand, ready to lunge and strike. His face was obscured; Clu took a step ahead to observe the projection. He was late to realize that the silent combatant was ready to attack – he raised his disc and swung ahead. The glowing disc hit the frame and shattered it with a tinkling sound. And the mirror fell to pieces.

 

 

II.

 

  The messages started to come when he was with the technicians. First the reports from patrols around the city, about the unidentified light runner which had arrived from the Outlands – and then from Jarvis. Clu took off immediately, just to be late anyway: by then the strange vehicle was gone and Sam Flynn had departed the system too. He realized it quickly that his messages had been delayed in order to keep him away: even the idea of that attempt made him hiss disdainfully. He had been waiting for more than a thousand cycles for the Creator and he was not going to let him get away again. Clu had seen the portal opening briefly when Sam had left, but Flynn was still there – he knew that.

 

  They were waiting at the Arcade, he and the guards he had summoned. Sam Flynn could be able to use his portal devices wherever he wanted, yet he had to come through the Arcade when he arrived. And he was to return soon, Clu knew that from Jarvis’ latest report. Now, that the time had come, he recalled the memories, all the grievances. Soon he would be throwing all of that at Flynn, calling him to account for his actions and for everything he had failed to do.

 

  Sam Flynn did not seem to be surprised when he showed up.

 

  “You met Flynn,” Clu said. “You came now to take him out of the system.”

 

  There was no point to make unnecessary circles nor to waste the time on polite words. Their cooperation was smooth and to the point; yet it would have been hard to forget that they had both seen the other one at his worst, that deception was not an option. The sentries could not track down the light runner after the vehicle had left the Palace – otherwise Clu would have gone after the Creator long before.

 

  “Yes,” Sam replied.

 

  “I want to meet him.”

 

  “No.”

 

  That reply was unexpected: rather reminded Clu of Flynn, the way he had refused to answer questions when he had felt like that, how convinced he had been about his untouchable superiority. And he remained adamant throughout the whole conversation.

 

  “Please,” Sam said at the end. “You have won already. He failed the system in every possible way. Let me bring him home, so he can see the whole extent of his failure. Let’s close this part now, and move ahead.”

 

  Clu was about to retort: what did Sam Flynn know about the extent of failure, how much did he sense from a thousand cycles of waiting? Clu had no intention to close anything, he was not going to let it go. Then something occurred to him: that exactly this approach, this User-like foolishness had kept them in a stagnant situation for so long. Yet, why was he the one, who was expected to give in? He was still waiting for the apologies, for Flynn to admit that he, Clu had been right. That was not going to happen ever: Clu knew that by now. It was his choice to end the wait and let go now, to be wiser then his Creator had been. Something inside him stirred rebelliously – Users changed so easily, what if the Creator would convince Sam Flynn, once out of the system? What if letting go meant deresolution for Clu? But that doubt was rather an excuse again: User or not, Sam Flynn had gone too far; he had committed himself – and his vision was entirely different from his father’s. Probably it was always him, Sam, who was meant to be the solution to the contrast between the Grid and the User world.

 

  Clu slowly nodded and turned away. From the board of his jet he saw Sam getting on a bike and driving away. Even then he wanted to change his decision, to order the crew to follow the User, to stop him before he would get to Flynn and they would leave. It was impossible for him to focus, to make professional decisions anymore. He had them drop him off at a deserted point of the city, where he could be alone during the departure: the jet and other aircrafts returned to the center for now.

 

  How would it feel, he was thinking, when Flynn would leave the system, after such an extended period of time? From here he would see the light of the portal; but would he feel anything? Had he been in a closed office, unaware of the upcoming event, would he sense the change? That not always reasonable, that sometimes reeling part of him, which he had inherited from Flynn, was still demanding, still urging him to run, to summon the guards and run after the Users. To try and stop them, to yell, fight… to ruin everything.

 

  It was too late: the sharp light of the opening portal flared up, somewhere in the outer districts of the city. The glaring column was more powerful, more luminous than it had been ever seen before – it touched the digital sky with a thundering sound, opening up the gate between the two worlds once more. And Clu did feel it; his hands clasped on his chest, where his heart would have been and where the most excruciating pain wakened now. For an endless moment all the visions and impressions that had found their way from the Creator to him through an unexplained channel during the cycles, lit up in his mind with smashing intensity, along with all the memories, which had originally come from Flynn. Clu fell on his knees, closing his eyes to shut out that horrible light, and when it went out, he stayed there, with his hands still on his chest, with the scream of absolute betrayal on his lips.

 

 

III.

 

  Life went on as if nothing had happened; work continued and the constructions proceeded. Seemingly there was no change in the mood of the habitants of the system: the new programs could not care less and the old ones… Later on Clu would know, what kind of changes had begun with Flynn’s departure, but at that point he did not recognize the shift. There was no announcement, no official release: Sam Flynn told some of his servants that the Creator had left, and the word went out quickly. It was somewhat satisfying to see this: that Flynn did not worth enough for the system, for Sam to make an actual statement – to see that his departure did not make any difference, just as his existence had not made any difference since so long. It was satisfying; yet it was an empty feeling at the same time, as if Clu’s passion, his long-cherished anger would not mean anything either.

 

  There were the signs of some unrest: a Recognizer shot down an unidentified plane that refused to land on its own; sentries were chasing strays and other outlaws – but the occurrence of these events was much more frequent now. Clu left the issues to his crew. Silence surrounded him: his prestige had been unquestionable for his servants anyway, and now, after Flynn’s shameful departure, others, neutral programs were convinced as well. Or it seemed like that: if anybody approached him when he was with the System Utilities, they did it respectfully, the previous, challenging tone they had risked sometimes, was gone. Some of them remained in the background; Clu saw them from the distance, when he arrived to a construction scene, but some of them quickly left right away to avoid meeting him. Clu did not see Shaddox since the reception; then, the work was done, and that was the only important thing. This was his victory – and it was up to him, to feel content or disappointed about it.

 

  Later, when he finished with his tasks, Clu returned to the stronghold, where the old command ship was docked in the closed hangar. He was very excited: he was waiting for this – for this last prize of his victory. He walked through the empty jet; before that it had felt odd to abandon this vehicle, strange to replace it. Now it seemed to be appropriate that he had changed it to something new – they were at the beginning of a new era.

 

  Inside of his old private quarter he passed the counter. He glanced at the jug of clear, liquid energy and the glasses. Tron had broken those twice before, after Clu had upgraded his codes and he had actually been able to get out of the bed on his own. The hidden drawers on the wall would not open for Tron, nor was he able to exit the room – it was the only thing he could do, to shatter those glasses in that short time while he was alone there and still awake. Clu fixed the damage without offering a single comment. Seeing, that the jug and the glasses were back, along with their content just the same at the next time, stopped Tron doing that. _How should it feel_ , Clu thought, _for one to be left with one single decision, to break those glasses or not, and be out of others’ mercy in everything else?_ Not that Tron did not deserve this fate; he had put himself in this situation with his own foolishness.

 

  Tron was quiet when Clu woke him up; calmer than usually, after coming back from the User’s residence. He turned on his side slowly, without looking at Clu or saying anything; there was nothing left to tell, nothing, that would have saved him from here. Clu was watching him, as he was lying there on the black sheets, in the scarce light of the golden panels – the way he was always supposed to be. He stepped closer; Tron’s eyelids fluttered, yet he remained motionless.

 

  “He is gone,” Clu said. “Flynn has left.”

 

  After a long moment, Tron moved. He turned on his back and looked up at Clu. His face was very focused, very calm. His circuitry pulsed with a faint blue light.

 

  “And he is not coming back,” he continued. “He has nothing to do with the system anymore.”

 

  Tron was still silent; his stare slowly softened and his look became peaceful, almost affectionate. Clu’s expression hardened. That look, Tron should have looked at him that way – but it was Flynn’s escape which prompted it.

 

  “So he is safe?” Tron asked, almost neglectful.

 

  “Yes,” Clu replied. Maddening anger was shading his mind. Tron closed his eyes and smiled lightly… _Smiled_. He turned back on his side and wrapped his arms around a pillow. Clu stopped next to the bed. He wanted to reach there, grab Tron and tear him to pieces.

 

  “But you are not,” he said. Tron did not respond, seemingly he did not even hear the statement. He smoothed his face against the pillow, his eyes still closed.

 

  “He is not coming back,” Clu repeated. “He never cared. He won’t come back for you.”

 

  Tron’s shoulders trembled. Clu thought he was crying, but when the program looked up, there was the same smile on his face.

 

  “Does that bother you?” he asked, smiling brightly. He looked down, at his broken body in the revealing silver-white dress. “Because you care?”

 

  Tron began to laugh loudly. Clu was staring at him, infuriated. He had not heard Tron laughing since before the coup: this was a bitter, sarcastic titter, but still – he was laughing at Clu. He reached there suddenly and grabbed Tron, giving him the same, paralyzing surge of energy with which he had hit him during their last duel. Tron let out a painful, soft groan. The pillow slipped out of his hands and his head fell back.

 

  “You…” Clu snarled. If only Tron would admit that he regretted being loyal to Flynn; instead of getting his rightful rewards, Clu was getting _this_. At least Tron had stopped laughing: he was watching in dread as Clu derezzed his robe. Life started to return into his limbs slowly – too slowly; Clu was on him before he could have moved. All the Siren suit dissolved at Clu’s touch at once and Tron closed his eyes.

 

  “You remember the last thousand cycles, don’t you?” Clu asked. Tron looked up. “You have those memories too. So you know that he has done nothing. Not for his followers, his ISOs, for nobody. Do you remember the hunt? When you were chasing the rebels? You were not able to follow them, once they left the city and entered the Outlands. You, Rinzler had to stop, even if you could have chased them down from a jet. It was a precaution, a line in your coding, so that way his programs could not lure you out from the city, to him. But it was unnecessary, because Flynn never tried, he never sent bait. Now he is gone, he ran for his life once more, and he is not coming back. This is the User, for whom you suffer so willingly.”

 

  Tron’s naked body strained under him while he was talking and then tears filled those grey eyes. Clu leaned there and kissed him; his gloves derezzed and his fingers sank into the program’s pale skin. Tron screamed, when it began, the stream of energy between them and he was sobbing until he lost consciousness. Those tears, those were not the tears of the physical pain and Clu knew that. Maybe, he thought as he was lying there at the end, satisfied, with the limp body in his arms, maybe he had indeed vanquished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IV.

 

  “Lawsuit?” he asked. The words sounded strange, hilarious even, at the spacious workstation of the administration building. Clu turned and looked at Sam. The boy was sitting at a desk, with his legs on the console. He appeared to be somewhat irritated.

 

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. Probably he regretted mentioning it already: Clu never asked him about the User world, the same way as Sam kept out from the inner affairs of the system. “He can’t do anything.”

 

  “Is that so?”

 

  Sam glanced at him.

 

  “A lawsuit takes one and a half, two years,” he said. “Almost two hundred centuries down here.”

 

  Clu nodded. That was long time, even from the point of view of a program.

 

  “Even if he wins, which is, well, impossible, he will not get it back. The company, yes, maybe. But the system? If there will be the slightest chance, that the court might favor him, I will remove the server from the building in time. I guess ENCOM would be selling softwares at that time just the same, but by then… Next to what this system would provide, it would be a side project, meaningless.”

 

  Clu remained silent. He liked to hear this, especially from Sam, a confirmation from a User about something he had always known – about the importance of the system. Sam Flynn still seemed to be concerned.

 

  “The backup,” he said. Clu turned toward him, with his arms crossed. “There is a saved version of the Grid on the server.”

 

  “What about it?” asked Clu.

 

  “Every ten minutes, the system saves and once in a month a back up version is created on a secondary hard drive. It’d been like that before, just the same and I did not change the procedure in the new server room.”

 

  Clu was waiting. Sam straightened himself.

 

  “The last saved version was created before he left. Before my father left,” he said. “There is a digital copy of him on the back up server. As there is a copy of the ISO, which left him with. And everything else.”

 

  Sam was silent for a few moments, then he looked up.

 

  “Does this mean, that he exists there too?” he asked. “He is out of here, flesh and blood now. On that back up server, is that him too? If I don’t intervene, a new saved version will be created automatically in two days and it will erase the previous one. That update would erase his information. Does that mean, that he, his digital version will die?”

 

  “No,” Clu replied. “You can let it happen. That is not him. That is not _us_ on that server.”

 

  Sam flinched, intrigued.

 

  “How do you know?” he asked. “Did he tell you?”

 

  “He did, actually. This question, it did bother him too. What you see on that server, that is information. Bits, memories. It does not… live, not the way you see life here. He, Flynn reloaded programs from the back up files, programs, that had been deleted for various reasons from the system.”

 

  “And what happened?” Sam asked quickly. “Were they the same?”

 

  “They look the same. They know the same things and they have the same memories. But… it is not the same. If a program derezzes, that is gone. You can reload it, but it will come back with another…”

 

  He paused, then he finished it with a little smile.

 

  “…consciousness,” he said.

 

  “Soul,” Sam said at the same time, with tense look on his face. Clu smirked, he did not reply. He felt somewhat amazed by Sam’s words. The young User had stated his opinions about the Grid and its denizens several times; his views had been changing, apparently. It might have been the time he had spent in the system, that prompted that shift – probably something else. Clu did not ask and Sam did not say anything else; he stood up and walked out of the room, seemingly deep in his thoughts.

 

 

V.

 

  The small ship landed on the top of the office building shortly after the constructions in a remote sector had stopped. The report had come first and soon after the jet arrived, carrying the System Utility in charge for the operation. The program took the elevator to the offices and entered the hall. Clu was standing at a console with Jarvis on his side when he stepped the large, shared workplace.

 

  Ever reserved and unreadable, Shaddox crossed the space with large steps, eyes downcast. The soft sounds of the machines and the technicians’ conversations filled the spacey station; the window overlooked the skyscrapers of the busy city center. Clu was looking at the screen on the console, above the shoulder of the program that was working there – seemingly unconcerned, he was highly alerted by the system error, which was not supposed to occur.

 

  Shaddox stopped before him. His face was serious, now shaded by some concern.

 

  “We encountered an unexpected problem,” he said. “The crew has left the site until further instructions.”

 

  “What happened?” asked Clu.

 

  “Until now we’ve been unable to analyze the source of the interruption. At one point we could not proceed anymore, our vehicles stopped and there are trails of electromagnetic waves. This exceeds our capabilities.”

 

  “I see,” replied Clu. Shaddox nodded and stepped back, waiting for orders. Clu turned back to the console. There was no system error in the area where the alleged problem had occurred, he was aware of that. After a quick probability calculation he knew, what was happening. Jarvis was looking at him expectantly.

 

  “Should we send assistance, Sire?” he asked.

 

  “No,” Clu said quietly, so the programs around them would not hear him. “They want me to go. This is a trap.”

 

  “Sire…?” asked Jarvis, stunned. He kept his voice low as well. “I am calling the guards.”

 

  “No,” he replied. “I’m leaving. Summon all the sentries: they should wait for my calling. As we leave, a squad of Black Guards should follow us, but have them keep the distance. They are not to intervene until I give a sign.”

 

  “Yes, Sire,” Jarvis said. He was talking while staring at the pad in his hands. “Sire… Let me call the guards now. They will put him down right away.”

 

  Clu smiled as he was watching the colorful signs on the terminal. It would have been quick: there were guards everywhere, the closest ones in the hall, just a few steps away from them. But then, it would have been _too_ quick – and Clu was actually entertained. Setting up a trap meant that there was a conspiration, involving high-ranked System Utilities and many others. It meant that he was facing the largest rebellion since centuries; and most probably the last one, considering that once beaten down, all the conspirators would be derezzed or rectified. And with the Creator gone, there would be no others, not anymore. No – it would have been too quick, too easy to call for the guards just now.

 

  “Do as I said,” he ordered. Jarvis nodded, turned and left the room promptly. _How careful they were about the details_ , Clu wondered: it had been a while, since Sam Flynn had left and he was not going to return soon. It was the end of the week in the User world, when he usually did not come – and the rebels decided to carry out the coup during this time. Should they prevail, they would have some time to take over the Grid from Clu’s forces before Sam’s arrival.

 

  “Alright,” he said, joining Shaddox. “I want to see that error.”

 

  They walked out from the office. Two personal guards joined them at the door and boarded the jet with them. The aircraft lifted up smoothly and headed toward the outer districts. _What is the plan,_ Clu was thinking, _what do they hope for? There might have been a point to rebel, before Sam Flynn’s first arrival – they could have taken Clu down and have Flynn return – but now? Should they succeed, what makes them think that Sam would not delete them in an instant?_

  “We are approaching the site,” said Shaddox. It was far away from the inhabited area: the abandoned construction was well-lit, railed off. _Maybe they do_ , Clu thought, _maybe they do think that Sam would hear them out, should he return to the Grid and face the new situation._ He found it amusing though: that the conspirators assumed that without Clu, under Sam’s rule the Grid would be as it had been under Flynn.

 

  The jet landed next to a half-finished building. The first few levels had been completed already, above that lines of codes were hovering, waiting to be finished. Programs were wandering around; they bowed when Clu and his escort exited the plane.

 

  “This way,” said Shaddox, gesturing at the building. “The error message comes from a trough on the other side of this building. I will show it to you from the upper level and then we can approach it through the stairs.”

 

  _How sure_ , Clu was thinking, _how sure he must be about his plan, his right, if he joined the rebellion, for the first time since the beginning._ That was why Clu despised him the most, for not taking sides ever; he had made up his mind at the end, apparently.

 

  “Fine,” he replied. The building was empty: he could tell that before entering. He ordered the two guards to stay at the gate. Alone with Shaddox he did not have anything to fear inside: he suspected that there would be others on the other end, but he was not planning to walk into the trap. The jet, packed with Black Guards was on the way and would show up without delay once he called for them.

 

  They walked upstairs. Pale, light green and blue light filled the premises there, it came from the piles of numbers; the unfinished coding of the building. Out of sight, the trooper landed behind a dark tower nearby. There were other empty buildings all around, a smaller one at the closest, with a flat top.

 

  “We are almost there,” said Shaddox.

 

  “Yes,” Clu replied. He reached behind his shoulder to bring out his disc. He looked on the side, searching for the threat. “Almost.”

 

  From the corner of his eye he saw the System Utility turning around, surprisingly quickly. His disc was in his hand in an instant and was ready to take the blow, should it come from either side. The moment he wasted to look for the coming attack from anywhere but Shaddox proved to be a fatal mistake: as the System Utility turned, his activated disc was in his hand and he struck without hesitation. The glowing disc cut through the armor and plunged into Clu’s chest deeply.

 

  He staggered; his own disc fell out from his hand. Shaddox withdrew his disc, out from the horrible, pixelated wound. Clu called for the guards as he fell on the ground. His voice was barely more than a muffled whisper: it was enough anyway. The jet with the squad emerged from behind the nearby building immediately, its lights turned on – from below there came the sound of the fight as the personal guards got the alarm and the programs on the street attacked them before they could have entered the premises. The jet ascended and made a turn, getting ready to land on the top of the unfinished building, when the dark workshop, behind what the plane had been hiding, moved. As he was lying there, with his hands pressed on the open wound on his chest, Clu was watching the scene with eyes wide shut. The surface of the building was changing: the codes were altering rapidly and the disguise of the building dissolved. It was hiding another ship; a medium sized fighter plane – its white energy lines flared up as the dark shades of the building disappeared. It was firing at the other jet, before the guards could have recognized the threat. Clu could not tear his eyes away from the rebel aircraft, even though the pain was excruciating and Shaddox was still standing above him, with his disc in his hand. The most talented System Utilities must have worked on this trap for cycles: the disguise had been perfect. The energy missiles hit the red plane, before the squad of Black Guards could have left the board and the vehicle shook. For a moment it was hanging there, then it exploded; the codes of the jet and its passengers were destroyed in an instant and the shattered remains fell on the ground below with sharp, long tinkling. Suddenly it became silent: there were no sign of the two guards either.

 

  Still lying on his side, Clu closed his eyes. His injury was severe, but not fatal – not yet. He knew that all the sentries of the Grid had received the alert when the light jet had been destroyed and that backup was on the way already. It would take time; but they were coming. Suddenly he remembered the system shutdown passcode – and he remained silent. There was no way of knowing how that would happen and how quickly: had there been any sign of what was going on, that could prompt the rebels to finish the job before the actual stoppage. His own disc was lying on the ground behind Shaddox, out of reach for now.

 

  He turned. They were alone on the roof, surrounded only by the glowing columns of codes. The rebels’ plane was circling slowly, it did not approach. Down on the street the programs were running; away from the construction site. Shaddox took a step closer and Clu looked up at him. There was indescribable hate on the program’s face. Clu was wondering if he was to make the final blow or there would be others coming. The System Utility lifted his disc – and he returned it to its port. Shaddox leaned ahead and looked in Clu’s face from close. None of them spoke and after a short moment Shaddox straightened himself. He looked at the city; his expression was different now, hopeful, relieved. He turned unexpectedly, walked to the edge of the roof and jumped down onto the street. The hovering jet also began to leave.

 

  Clu sat up. The self-maintenance was running already, but he was not able to rise yet. Before anything else he had to figure why Shaddox had left: why he had not killed him. He put one hand on the surface of the ground and tapped the coding of the building. He knew immediately; he knew that Shaddox _had killed him_. The whole site was coded to derezz in a delayed action and there was just a very short time left until the explosion. Clu uttered the system shutdown password loudly.

 

  An echoing thud sounded and a pile of light emerged in the city center. It rose from the ground and reached to the sky as it would be a portal, which just opened up. Once initiated, the pile began growing and quickly engulfing the city. It was a giant wave of light which was growing in a concentric circle. Whatever was touched by the wave, the buildings, the aircrafts, that froze the way it was: motionless Recognizers and jets were hanging above the city. The wave was approaching the outer districts in a slow motion. Too slowly: Clu was watching it for a while, until he made the calculation – the explosion was going to occur just before the system around the construction site would save and shut down. The back up forces on the way were also too far; they were not going to get there on time. He tried to stand up and fell back right away. Thick, liquid energy was flowing from the deep wound. There was not enough time left to wait for the self-maintenance or even to get to his disc and start fixing his own codes. He could have began to fumble with the coding of the building: that would have been just as pointless for the lack of time as it was to start scrambling after his disc.

 

  As he realized that every attempt would be in vain, the panic ceased. It was a logical conclusion, his upcoming deresolution, and there was nothing to do about it. He looked at the disappearing programs, the lights of the fleeing jet. He almost felt sorry for them: how badly they failed, how poorly they mistook their options and their situation. There was only one reason to try and make an attempt on Clu: if they believed that Sam Flynn was acting under his influence, that after Clu’s deresolution they could talk to him. They thought Sam Flynn was like his father had used to be – a friend, a benignant provider. But then, there was no point to blame them for that; they had not had the chance to get to know Sam. He was not like the Creator had been, Sam was not walking around the city, where everybody could talk to him. They did not know what Clu knew – that the coup would make Sam furious, that he would never talk to the rebels. The fact, that the young User would learn from Jarvis that Clu knew about the trap and walked into it, would not make a difference – although the realization was upsetting.

 

  The wave of light was getting closer, bigger and bigger part of the system was saved and shut down. He was watching the view calmly: his city, his accomplishment, in safety now. _What would happen to it now?_ The logical conclusion came quickly: Sam Flynn would reload a new version of Clu from the saved data base. It would not be him, but almost – it would have his knowledge and capabilities, and more or less the same personality. Sam would need someone to oversee the operations on the Grid and by now he knew that they could cooperate smoothly. And Clu’s new version would surely be grateful for the opportunity, for his life. This idea was rather annoying: but again, there was nothing he could do about it.

 

  A red dot appeared on the sky: the first jet with Clu’s sentries. It was flying before the wave of light – behind it everything was shut down. The whole system was encased in the bright jar, waiting for the User to come and restart it. The stronghold with the old command ship was inside of the circle as well. About that he did not have to worry: the new System Administrator would inherit his needs the same way it would have his responsibilities – he would take care of Tron. While the idea was reassuring, he felt the sudden pang of regret; Clu would not hold him in his arms again. If nobody else amongst the rebels, Shaddox surely wanted to free his old friend, long overdue – and the System Utility was wrong about that part too. How could they assume that Sam Flynn would let Tron go? Did not they see how the User looked at Tron, how much he hated and wanted him at the same time? The rebellion had failed before it actually happened. Or not, not exactly: because now the time came and the explosion was imminent.

 

  Clu kept his face turned toward the city. That was the view he wished to see while expiring. The perfect system: his duty and now his legacy, with all its programs and all the inventions it would give to the User world. Victorious at last, he was looking at it with slight sadness. It seemed to him that he was not alone on the roof, even though everybody had left long before and the red plane was yet to arrive. Contrary to his earlier intention he tore his eyes away from the city view and looked at that ghost, his dying vision. An ethereal figure, moving gracefully and ever so lightly; kind to him at last. Clu groaned and reached out with his hand; but it was just a vision, nothing palpable. Soft hair, which fell into those eyes – and he thought he heard some sound from somewhere. Something, like a child’s rhyme, a lullaby with words which did not make sense here, but were soothing anyway – it did not matter, that he was the only one in the whole realm who knew what a child or a lullaby was.

 

  Up there the jet was hit by the energy wave and froze in the air. The bright wall was so close that Clu thought he had miscalculated and the construction site would be saved and shut down before the deresolution. But then a detonation shook the building and the explosion tore his body apart before the wave could have gotten there.

 

 

 

VI.

 

  White light: awakening. The sensation was new, unused – and casual at the same time. He was staring at the bright, white light panels on the ceiling; he did not remember opening his eyes... he did not remember where he was.

 

_Who am I?_

 

_I am Clu._

  He closed his eyes and recalled his memories. All were there, starting from the compilation and ending at the explosion at the construction site.

 

_I am the new version of Clu._

 

  It was a logical conclusion, but it was not true, he felt that immediately. He opened his eyes and lifted his hands: it was a stunning experience, since this body had derezzed earlier. His gloves were missing: he was wearing a long-sleeved white tunic – yet regardless of the strange attire, this was his old, original physical appearance. He had the same consciousness; he lived, even though he had derezzed right before the system shutdown.

 

_How is this possible?_

 

  He ran one more test before moving. He found most things, files and applications where they had used to be; and there were updates and new elements as well. Clu had seen Sam programming and he recognized the User’s handwork now. Sam had worked on his coding – but that was not an answer to the question: how had he survived his own deresolution? Or had he died and Sam had found a way to recall his original consciousness? That seemed to be impossible; yet, he was here.

 

_But where?_

 

  He sat up without any particular effort. Now he saw that his whole body was intact; below the tunic he wore long, white pants and no footwear. It was strange; rather User-like. The room was an empty cube with white walls and the only furniture in it was the long, flat, white stand he had been laying on. He stood up and walked to the wall, where a door opened up and revealed a larger, familiar room. He knew this place: it was one of the bigger control rooms of the main office building. It was empty now, except for two programs that were sitting on the two sides of a console and were looking at a screen intensely. It was a male and a female, both were wearing black clothes: the latter one had no visible circuits; she wore a simple, black coat. Her male companion had red circuits and a large visor. They looked up at the same time when Clu entered the room, as if they were the reflections of each other.

 

 

 

 

 

  “Sire!” Jarvis exclaimed and he jumped on his feet. He took a few steps toward Clu and then he stopped. Behind him Jayden rose from her seat and stood there with a faint, almost bored smile on her face. Clu was silent: there were too many questions and most of them could be answered by Sam Flynn only.

 

  Jayden stepped ahead, quiet as well, removed her disc and offered it to Clu. He took it and opened the memory files, starting at the time when the attempt had happened. The warden was in the Palace, when the saving occurred: she was inside of the building and did not see the approaching wave of light before it penetrated the walls: there was a gap in Jayden’s memories after the shutdown.

 

  When she woke up, her first action was to raise her disc, ready to fight. But there was no enemy in the Palace; there was no motion, no sounds: the quiet hum of life was missing. In the memory Jayden turned around: Sam Flynn’s order came to her from the outside, it appeared as an instruction in her head – to find the reason, why Clu had shut down the system previously. She also learned that the Grid was not running; time was still stopped in the system. Jayden was the only program awake and she understood what that meant as she walked out of the room where she had been staying. There were others in the hall, programs from the User’s household: silent, motionless, frozen the way the shutdown had left them. Jayden walked through them carefully and exited the building. She was looking for signs of unusual activity: around the Palace everything appeared to be normal, as the closure had gotten them. Programs were standing on the street, bikes, cars and other road vehicles were stopped next to them. Some of the walking programs had frozen in a middle of a gesture; others were staring upward, as they had been saved while looking at the approaching energy wave.

 

  Jayden headed at the office building to find Clu and the source of the problem. Her bike crossed the city slowly as she was driving carefully, to avoid hitting the stopped vehicles or programs. She could not find Clu at the office, but she found Jarvis: the program was standing at the large window of the main office and was staring at the city with horror on his face. Jayden leaned closer to him and looked at the data pad in his hands: there were the coordinates of a location in an outer district, along with warnings and messages which indicated the destruction of a combat ship and its crew, an emergency situation with Clu involved.

 

  She rezzed a light jet and left the city: the small plane passed motionless Recognizers and other jets. Getting closer to the construction site Jayden saw several red ships that had frozen in the air while heading to the same place – then she saw a white jet, which was leaving the site. Down on the ground programs were stopped while fleeing: at Jayden’s destination there was some sort of a glitch in the texture of the Grid. When she arrived the warden realized that an explosion was happening there: there was a storm of pixels and flying pieces of objects, again, stopped the way they had been during the shutdown. Jayden could not see Clu in the mess, but she assumed that he was there and submitted her report to the User, who was waiting outside of the system.

 

  Jayden was watching the coming events with awe. Everything happened slowly, very slowly: Sam was in the User world and was making his actions according to his own timekeeping. It did not make a difference: time was stopped in the system anyway. A cube appeared around the derezzing construction site and the whole place disappeared as Sam removed it from the Grid. Then a shapeless structure showed up out from nothing and all the programs in the area, that were not red combatants, were moved inside. There was no activity after that, for a very long time. Jayden was alert anyway: she activated her bike and drove around, mapping the area and finding more offline programs that she recognized as rebels. Later she had some rest.

 

  A list of orders arrived at last: Jayden was to prepare for the system restart. Sam Flynn let her know that the red army would receive the information she had gathered, when the Grid would go live. Their task was to break down the rebel forces, restore the order in the city and have programs that were not involved in the coup, return to their duties. The User expected his orders to be executed and the system to be cleaned by Clu’s return.

 

  In the memory Jayden removed her disc and walked to the group of fleeing rebels. She looked up: there was a soft, popping sound, when the system restarted. The roar of the flying aircrafts and the yelling of the running programs filled the air suddenly. Jayden swung her disc and cut the closest one in half. Up there the closest red jet began to fire at the rebel ship – the latter one broke to pieces; a shower of glimmering pixels fell down. A small group of angry, white programs attacked Jayden: they were somewhat confused by the quick, unexpected reaction of Clu’s forces and the disappearance of the exploding building, but they were fighting anyway. Jayden threw her disc at one of them. The next one was too close to her to wait for the returning disc – her hands shot out in an instant and tore off the program’s head. She threw the derezzing skull away and turned to the rest with her disc raised; a team of Black Guards were running toward them.

 

  The rest of the files contained Jayden’s memories about beating down the uprising, the brief fight and following hunt. Soon all the surviving rebels were quarantined; having no programmer in the system, that could have identified the involved programs simply by opening the collected discs of the captives, the guards found out the same information the hard way. In a scene Jayden was crossing a room in the quarantine. Screams filled the space; there were scattered pixels everywhere on the floor and when she looked down, she saw that a hand was reaching out to touch her coat. The hand belonged to a program that was lying on the ground, badly damaged with his other arm severed. Jayden stepped away from the imploring touch.

 

  The latest memories revealed that life had returned to the old routine and the work continued. They were waiting: for Clu’s promised return, for the decision about the conspirators. The User had never come; Sam had not returned after the events.

 

_He would have come. His father would have come, to argue with the rebels, he would have tried to convince them and they would have made an arrangement._

 

  But Sam had not come: that was where the conspirators made their biggest mistake. There was no opportunity to talk to him, no chance to change his mind – for this User they were tools, not partners. This solution fitted a User better; it was elegant.

 

  Clu looked up at the warden. She was waiting with unreadable face; this was her last task, to inform Clu about the past events and then to return to the Palace. He closed the disc and gave it back to her. Jayden took it, turned and left the room silently.

 

  Jarvis was watching with a smile on his face. His delight felt oddly exaggerated after the warden’s silence. Clu did not say anything; a few questions had been answered, but there were others left. He glanced down; the white attire which covered his body, began to transform into a darker, thicker texture; his original black suit felt familiar and the circuits on it lit up with their golden blaze.

 

 

VII.

 

  At the time of Sam’s arrival the city was quiet. Everybody was back to their jobs: some of the projects had been reorganized do to the removal of engineers and System Utilities that had been involved in the current events. Most of them condemned the rebellion, especially the newly arrived programs – none of those had been associated with the uprising. Now they were waiting to see what the answer would be, if their lives would change because of the violent events. There was no fear, but was remarkable curiosity – the same expectation which filled the Arena at the beginning of the games.

 

_Why did not he let it happen?_

 

  That was the questions that kept on bothering Clu since his awakening. It would have been so simple, so handy for Sam just to restart the system and let him derezz. The backup information would have been there; a new version of him would have been available. Instead of that Sam had chosen to restore his derezzing files, putting them back together with slow, meticulous work to save the original – to save his life. Kevin Flynn would have done that for him, back in the cycles; for him, for their friendship. But Sam was not his friend; they were just cooperating, they only had similar interests.

 

  There was concern on Sam’s face when they met: the User must have seen his reinstalled codes running properly, still, he had not seen Clu after the explosion. The system administrator could understand that: before the coup programs had treated him with the necessary respect. After his return – after his deresolution and subsequent appearance that had changed, it had become similar to the awe they looked at Sam and at Kevin Flynn before him.

 

  He did not ask, why; he did not ask the only question he cared for. Sam was watching him, his behavior: the updates he had done to Clu’s coding made him technically quicker and more efficient – and yet, the only real difference came from something else. He felt calmer now, less irritable: throughout the cycles he had seen and experienced everything what an artificial creature could have in the system. With being deleted and brought back right after now he knew all and more that was possible for such entity.

 

  “They came to me,” said the boy. “They wanted to talk to me. I sent them away, saying I didn’t deal with the inner affairs of the system.”

 

  Clu nodded.

 

  “That was the right way to do,” he said.

 

  “What did they want? What did they want to achieve?”

 

  “Freedom.”

 

  “What?” asked Sam, dumbfounded.

 

  “The freedom to ruin the system. Don’t you recognize by now, what Flynn taught them? That everybody has rights, and those rights should be respected? That all has the right to live, even if their existence destroys the place?”

 

  Sam’s expression hardened.

 

  “What should happen to them?” he asked. Clu glanced at him. “Should I delete all or will you rectify them?”

 

  That was it; simple enough – the way to handle broken tools.

 

  “Delete,” Clu replied. Sam nodded.

 

  “Give me a list later, about the functions that need to be replaced,” he said. “I’ll delete them when I’m gone.”

 

  “I’ll do it,” said Clu. Sam shrugged; his mind was apparently on something else already: on the job he wanted to be done during his stay and on his needs that would be satisfied. All had been told; Clu left the office soon after the User.

 

 

VIII.

 

  The light of the portal went out with a flash: Clu watched at it inquisitively. _Why?_ He had not asked and Sam Flynn had not said anything about the coup, not a single remark, if the issue had forced him to change his plans in the User world. For Clu it was life – for Sam it was nothing, or almost so.

 

  “Sire,” Jarvis approached him. Clu looked at him. His assistant seemed to be unusually nervous. Jarvis had come back from the Palace not long ago and now he appeared to be concerned. “There is a message I have to give you.”

 

  “A message?” asked Clu and glanced at the darkness where the light of the portal had gone out not long ago. “From the User?”

 

  “No, Sire,” Jarvis replied awkwardly. “From the slave.”

 

  Clu turned to him expectantly. Jarvis was apologetic.

 

  “He wants to talk to you, Sire. He said, I would regret, should I miss to pass this message before the executions.”

 

  Clu laughed.

 

  “And now you are afraid of him?” he asked. He was really amused.

 

  “No, Sire… He said, you would make me regret.”

 

  Clu was still grinning.

 

  “What happened?” he asked.

 

  “He saw the scaffolds, Sire, and asked about them,” replied Jarvis. Those scaffolds were erected on the large square in front of the Palace. Sam was not interested to see any of that attraction, and it was scheduled to take place in his absence, yet that place close to his residence was chosen for the event.

 

  “What did you tell him?” asked Clu. Now he understood Jarvis’ nervousness: his assistant was not sure if he was supposed to talk to Tron at all.

 

  “I said there had been a coup and that the perpetrators would be derezzed at that spot for their crimes. He demanded to talk to you before the act, saying it was very important.”

 

  Jarvis was staring at him, waiting for a response, desperate for an approval.

 

  “Did you tell him, who the rebels were? Did you tell him names?” Clu asked.

 

  “No, Sire. He asked about the number of the traitors and I replied.”  

 

  Clu was silent, considering.

 

  “You did well,” he said finally. Jarvis stepped back, relieved.

 

  It was difficult to get back to his work; the episode made Clu curious. His thoughts kept on wandering back to what Jarvis had said. Tron had no way of knowing about the rebels’ plans prior to the coup – what did he have to say? Most importantly, this was the first time since the rebellion – the first one, Clu’s takeover -, when Tron asked for anything, when he tried to approach Clu for any reason.

 

  The old command ship was dark and quiet in the large hangar: from farther away the sound of a maintenance crew came, they were working on a troop carrier aircraft. The doors opened and closed quietly once more. The familiar, dim light filled the small room in the back. Tron was sitting on the floor, with his back to the wall, apparently trying to stay awake. He looked miserable; he was very pale and his eyes were hollow; he was tired and weary after what he had gone through in Sam’s hands not long before. He looked at Clu and his eyes narrowed. That reminded the system administrator that only his capabilities were gone, not his senses: back in the cycles Tron had never confused two similar looking programs for one another. He had been asleep during the shutdown and had not seen Clu since the coup – now Tron felt that something had changed about him, even if he could not tell, what.

 

  Tron stood up slowly.

 

  “Let them live,” he said.

 

  “And exactly why should I do that?” asked Clu. Tron did not reply. “There was a time when you’d have derezzed all of them, just for planning what they did.”

 

  “I know,” said Tron quietly.

 

  “Then what? You don’t know who they are, what they committed. Alive or derezzed, you will not see any of them, ever. Why do you care?”

 

  Tron was about to reply, then he remained silent. His look became distant; that was how Clu figured the answer. It was about Flynn – it was always about him, even if Tron had never once mentioned his name. Those programs belonged to the Creator; if they had rebelled, they had done it for their faith in the first User and his ways. The instinct to try and save their lives came from Tron’s original coding, which prompted him to defend the User and his allies.

 

  “Let’s say that I spare their lives,” Clu said. “What should I do with them?”

 

  “Rectify,” said Tron. Clu did not expect that reply; it made him realize how broken Tron was. For a warrior that option was out of question, being considered worse than deresolution. That choice would have saved their lives – but that choice was something that a combatant would have never asked for.

 

  “I could,” Clu replied. “But I won’t. Why should I waste my time on them, now, that I can get as many new, faithful programs I just want?”

 

  “Just let them live. Please.”

 

  “Why? To make them the obedient servant they refused to be? So they would live in a system they were fighting against?”

 

  “But they would live,” Tron whispered and closed his eyes. He was close to shutting down. Then he looked up again; his look was disturbing as he was standing there, with his hands clasped together. Clu wanted him – and he was going to have him, later, once the last remains of the treason would be cleaned up from the Grid.

 

  “What would I gain?” he asked, teasingly, as the decision had been made anyway. “With letting them go? What would be my reward? Their everlasting gratefulness? Would they call me noble, all around the system?”

 

  He laughed sarcastically; he nodded at the bed.

 

  “Forget them,” he said. “By the time you wake up, they will be gone.”

 

  He was about to leave – just the desperate expression on Tron’s face kept him back, the fact that he still had something to say. There was an inner fight, an apparent, short struggle. More than one hundred and fifty; that was the number of the imprisoned rebels.

 

  “You can have me,” Tron said at the end, barely audible. He was staring at the floor: none of them spoke. How easily, Clu was thinking, how unexpectedly he had pronounced those words, the words Clu had been waiting for since centuries. His victory seemed to be like that; his triumph over the Creator was not an actual duel, but a defeated User, sneaking out of the system – and the completion was not Tron and him, together side by side, the way he had always imagined themselves, but this broken offering.

 

  Tron was standing there in his white suit, with his eyes downcast. How late he was to recognize, Clu thought, that Tron had never deviated from his original directions, from protecting the system and its denizens – only his ways changed, the manners of the fight. He, Clu should have expected this; he was the one who had dressed Tron in that Siren suit after all. Tron was just… adjusting.

 

  The program glanced up, confused by the silence. He blushed; by his own words, by maybe offering something unworthy, something which was out of his control anyway. But that was not true; he offered the only thing in his possession.

 

  “Deal,” said Clu and lunged ahead. And there it was, for the first time ever: no fight, no objections, no angry hissing, just quiet obedience. Tron lost his balance when they collided – Clu’s arms were wrapped around him tightly and for that he did not fall backwards. He closed his eyes, bracing himself once more and when he looked at Clu, his expression was strange; not hateful, not even emotional, simply… knowing. His lips opened without resistance, when Clu leaned there to kiss him; his body strained lightly at the contact, but still he did not struggle.

 

  Suddenly Clu remembered Rinzler, the way he had used to be and his own pondering throughout the cycles about Tron, if his willingness would be different from the reprogrammed version’s. Rinzler’s faithfulness had not been programmed, only the directions of his compliance had been modified and back in those times Clu liked to believe that there was something genuine in that affection he received, that it was somewhat similar to what Tron would have given him. That hit Clu now, the similarity between the behavior of that program and now Tron’s; the way his head fell back, how he glanced at Clu, looking for his reactions. He had known, Clu thought, Rinzler… Tron had always known what effect he had had on others, whether he had been parading in the Arena or here, just for Clu’s entertainment.

 

  The stream of energy started and now Tron did resist; he groaned from the pain and his legs gave up under him. Clu held him steadily – he stopped.

 

  “Is this how you behave?” he asked. Tron’s eyes widened from the fear, if the instinctive reaction was breaking the promise.

 

  “Please,” he whispered. Clu laid him down on the bed. Tron began shaking as the faint glow appeared again. The collar of his dress dissolved at Clu’s touch, along with some silver material on his chest to reveal his real circuitry. Clu could not wait more; he reached there and pressed his palm against the faint blue energy lines. Tron’s body arched and he cried out involuntarily; for the very first time that was not a painful yelp, not a tormented scream. Clu lay on him before he could have recovered from the first hit. The glow of the flowing energy became steady and strong; the golden and blue light mixed together dynamically. Tron was squirming in his arms; he seemed to be more and more lost, more and more helpless against the pleasure which conquered him.

 

  For a quick moment it occurred to Clu that not long before it had been Sam Flynn, where he was now – he shook the idea away. He was drunk with pleasure and contentment: with the fact that those hands were not straining against him. It was proceeding rapidly and as he was getting closer, there was one more distracting thought which came to Clu’s mind: that this was the only thing he had been unable to take from Tron, which he simply could not force out – and that it was them again, the supposed friends and the consequences of their mindless actions, for what Tron had to pay again. But it was fine: everything was fine now.

 

  The program’s fingers cramped and sank into Clu’s black suit; a last cry tore from Tron’s lips. It was hard for Clu to hold on and not to collapse, but he wanted to see Tron’s face at the final moment, his expression melting at the pleasure. And so it did; yet there was something else, the glimpse of the ultimate horror in those eyes – with allowing this to happen, Tron had given up everything he had had. Clu could not suppress his own delighted growl. Tron’s eyes closed; his senses were overwhelmed and the shutdown could not be delayed anymore. That was somewhat regrettable; Clu would have wanted to see his reactions now – but then, it was just the beginning and he would have the opportunity for that later. Clu was lying there for long, with the sleeping body in his arms, before rising and returning to the city. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
 

 

IX.

 

  Time. Lights, the buzz of machines and vehicles; the life, returning to normal. All the programs went back to the workshops and factories. The games were scheduled to restart as a celebration of achievement around the system. The scaffolds on the Palace square were disassembled.

 

  Clu was standing at the window of the office. Behind him dozens of programs were working at the terminals, quiet talk and automated noises filled the space. He was looking at the view: a remarkable sight with no remainders of the recent destruction. His reflection on the window was dark, his face behind the helmet invisible.

 

  The door opened at the end of the office and four programs walked in with reports. They crossed the large room and walked to the short staircase. They stopped; one of them went upstairs with his data pad. Clu did not move. The program stopped a few steps behind him, on his right. His reflection appeared next to Clu’s: a System Utility with dark features and a beard, with glowing red circuit lines on his suit.

 

  “Sire,” the program said.

 

 

 

 

 


	8. The Digital Frontier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Does Quorra know about it?” she asked. “Does she know what is waiting for her? We live in the 21st century, we don’t have to perform a vivisection to get results. But there will be pain, sometimes significant. When the experiments begin, we will need blood, tissues, bone-marrow. She will be the guinea pig in this project. Is she ready for that?”

I.

 

  The house was built on the hills: a large cube, made of glass and metal. It was surrounded by trees; a tall, white fence separated the estate itself from the street. The windows were overlooking the city: the giant basin, full of buildings, boulevards and lights – most of the time half-hidden under the blanket of smog. In front of the building there was a long, narrow pool: the surface of the water rippled in the mild wind. The walls were white inside and outside.

 

  The rooms were spacey with high ceilings. After sunset the clear, white blaze of modern light fixtures illuminated the place. There were lamps outside as well, around the house and the swimming pool. For any onlooker it was a state-of-the-art mansion, just after remodeling, but was something else for the two inhabitants of the house: a home – and something similar to their previous residence, the safehouse on the Grid. Something similar; and something entirely different at the same time.

 

  It was the noise at the first place, the constant stream of sounds, which was impossible to disregard: in the vehicle that took them from ENCOM, on the way and then in the hotel – the breeze, the engine of the car, footsteps… Even the sound of their own breathing became part of the cacophony. Flynn remembered; the system had never been silent either, as it had had its own noises; the hiss of the hard disc that sounded like wind in there or the never-ending flow of electric charge. Even with that, the real world was intolerably loud, unbearably noisy after centuries on the Grid.

 

  Then there was the temperature; an almost unknown effect in the digital realm, where everything was an illusion, an interpretation. Now they did feel it, too cold first, but too hot after putting on more clothes or turning on the heater; they were suffering in their newly manifested bodies for long, before slowly adjusting to the unusual conditions. On the other passenger seat Quorra was blinking rapidly at the neon lights of the city; she was quiet during the ride. There were no comforting words for her: Flynn’s mind was racing. He wanted to instruct the driver to turn around and bring them back to the office building: there must have been a way for him to convince his son. But it was too much already, too many words, too much anger – he needed some time to clear up his mind. The cell phone with his old contacts was in the car as Sam had promised and once in the hotel, he dialed Alan Bradley’s number right away. There were others too, that would have responded to his call at that hour, yet Flynn called him first. Did he do that, because he knew that Alan was reserved enough to hold back his questions? Because he was going to help them anyway? That was what Flynn thought while waiting and maybe those were the main reasons indeed. Just when Alan arrived – in a rush, somewhat disheveled, yet wide awake –, he realized, that more than anything he needed to see his old friend, because he could not see Alan’s creature; that he had to promise Alan Bradley that he would fix everything, because he had no way of telling the same to that other one, the one that had been left behind.

 

 

II.

 

  The torn, black pieces of clothing were lying around on the white marble floor: it had been impossible for her to take it off without actually shredding it. For a short moment Quorra felt regret for doing so; her only belongings from the Grid were now lying there scattered. Then she turned away: it was just some wrinkled, weird-looking material with burnt-our circuit lines on it. Flynn had been convinced that she would survive the transmission, but that did not go for lifeless objects – the once elegant gridsuit was no more than a pile of garbage on the floor now.

 

  Her heartbeats slowed down: the frantic thumping of the first minutes was gone. After the painless transmission the manifestation was excruciating; all the organs began to work at the same moment, every single nerve ending activated at once. She began to _feel_ and it was too hot, too much, too overwhelming… By the time Quorra recovered, they were out of the server room; her chance to act, to do something was gone and they were separated from the system, from their home for good.

 

  She was watching the passing streets through the window; and the reflection of her own face on the smooth surface. It looked like her, the way she had used to look like before, but when she touched her skin, it felt different. Quorra started to panic: what other changes had been made? Was she a User now? Flynn was deep into his thoughts and Quorra did not have the words to form her questions anyway. She could not pay attention when they arrived to the hotel – she rushed into the bathroom immediately to examine her body. She tried to pull off her suit, which turned out to be sealed; that was when she began to tear it off with her bare hands. The texture of the clothes was thin and it came off easily.

 

  All the circuits were missing: her skin was smooth, without the distinctive patterns. She touched the spot were the ISO symbol had used to glow on her forearm – the sign which had meant death to her kind, something that had had to be hidden. No such precaution was needful anymore: that symbol was gone as well. Quorra turned at the mirror. Not a program anymore – but then what? User? She could not tell. The bathroom around her was filled with strange appliances; and she had to learn the names of them, the use of all. For now it was enough to deal with the sense of discomfort. There was a palpable pulse on her neck, similar to the permanent throb of energy back in the system – but this was different, this was _heartbeat_. The veins were visible under her pale skin and she started to feel cold.

 

  Quorra put on one of the white bathrobes that were hanging on a rack. She was exhausted and she had to see Flynn. They had been both distracted in the car: now they could talk, could consider the next step. The door of the suite opened just as she was about to exit; Quorra retracted immediately. There were the sounds of surprise, the exclamations of disbelief, anger… relief. It took only a few seconds for her to figure who the guest was – it was Alan Bradley. Still in the bathroom she sat down on the tiles silently, without turning the lights on. From there she could hear the conversation between the Users.

 

_I am a User._

  She still was not sure about that. But in the other room it was them, the two men talking.

 

_Users are friends._

  Again that statement felt false: her rational part demanded correction.

 

_Kevin Flynn – friend._

_Alan Bradley – friend._

_Sam Flynn – enemy._

 

 

III.

 

  There was a moment of silence after they entered the room – a relief after the trip and Flynn turned to Quorra. So late after they had been kicked out from the ENCOM building, so late after the ride; and he could not even be sure if Quorra was going to live. She stepped away and hurried to the bathroom; she seemed to be fine, just nervous and feverish. Her arrival was very different from what he had planned: there were no precautions, careful monitoring and immediate assistance after the transmission – but she was strong and survived anyway.

 

  He looked around in the suite: a luxurious, spacey room with high-end amenities. But it was okay, it was important, because it proved that Sam did not want to kick him out to the street, that he cared. Or did he?

 

  Quorra was still in the bath when Alan Bradley arrived. A strong, almost aggressive grasp; they hugged each other and Flynn heard Alan mumbling.

 

  “Fool,” he growled. “You’re a madman.”

 

  He could not be offended: after twenty years of absence he called Alan to a suite of a luxury hotel: what else Alan could have thought than he had been away by his own decision, and that he had returned on his own whim? But the joy Alan must have felt upon seeing him again was stronger than his anger and he fell silent then, waiting for him to talk – just to find that there were no explanations or apologies. Alan’s expression hardened; he listened to Flynn quietly.

 

  “Call him,” he said at the end. “Call Sam right away.”

 

  “What?” asked Flynn. “He’s not going to talk to me.”

 

  “Look, I don’t know where he found you and how, which would make him so hostile, as you say, but he is a good kid. He will listen to you.”

 

  “A good kid,” Flynn repeated. Alan looked at him sternly.

 

  “After leaving without a word and refusing to give an explanation,” he said, “do you think that you are in a situation to question that? Had it depended on you, he could be a useless junkie now. But he is a responsible person, who cares about others...”

 

  Alan cut off suddenly, but Flynn understood him: a responsible person, contrary to him, Flynn. And Alan was right; who was he to question it, to question anything. Yet it was hard, to find out that Sam had been caring once and if he had changed, if he had become that monster he had seen on the Grid, then it was his own, Flynn’s fault.

 

  “I’ll make this right,” he said. He looked at Alan: for a short moment he saw the young man he had been once and recalled the memories they shared. It was long time before: a thousand years earlier.

 

  “I will give you his number,” said Alan. “And then, you will have to talk to your attorneys. The bookkeepers, the authorities, to get back your papers… God, you don’t even imagine what kind of mess is waiting for you. And you will need a place to stay.”

 

  “Yes, we will need a place,” he replied. Alan appeared to be confused for a moment; then he glanced up. Quorra was standing there, at the door of the drawing room. She was wearing a long, white bathrobe. She seemed to be exhausted and there was some mild astonishment on her face as she looked at Alan. Alan Bradley’s expression darkened once more; he remained silent. None of them spoke and a minute later she turned away and disappeared.

 

  “I’ll help you,” said Alan slowly. “But others will not take this: they will not accept it if you deny giving them explanations.”

 

  He was about to retort; who was Alan talking about? But then he knew; it was Lora Baines, who was not going to take any of that, who would refuse anything else, but the truth. Flynn nodded: it was enough; it was more than he could ask for at that time.

 

  Later, when Alan left, Flynn stood up and went to see her. Quorra was lying, curled up on her side in the smaller bedroom. It was dark: she had not even turned on the lights to see the room, the furniture and the appliances – she was so different from her usual, curious self. He sat down next to her and took her hand: there was a steady beat of pulse on her wrist. The miracle, in the real world: what he had wanted for so long. But it was tainted, wrong – there should have been celebration and specialists to look after her from the beginning. She seemed to be hurt, even though she did not complain; one more broken child. Soon the morning would come and breakfast would be sent to the room; and yes, she had been mimicking eating for centuries, with fake forks, knives and spoons – but now this was for real. People would come with questions for which she had no answers.

 

  He slept in the spacious bed in the other room, without dreams and the morning light was coming through the shades when he woke up. Flynn did not know where he was: it felt like another dream on the Grid. Then he wakened and sat up with a twitch: it was in the morning and the realization hit him hard, that three days had passed in the system already since his departure.

 

 

IV.

 

  People arrived in a rush, the lawyers, accountants, publicists. It was the money, Flynn thought, which energized people like nothing else. But there were people amongst them, whom he knew from long and there was genuine delight on their faces when they saw him. It did not take long, the paperwork itself and soon he learnt that all his belongings would be under his supervision soon, except for ENCOM – just as Sam had told. He could file a lawsuit for the company; for now he refused the idea.

 

  At this time that was it: the word about his return did not go out yet. It would have been too early; too hard to handle everything at once. Other friends and the members of the larger family were not informed: and thinking about friends and family was rather though. Centuries had passed since Flynn had left this world and the decease of his parents and other, elderly relatives was a fact for him. Returning here he faced that again: it was reality now.

 

  Alan had given him Sam’s number: the boy refused to answer his calls. Throughout the day, that he spent with all those meetings, his thoughts were going back to his son. The urge to go and force him to listen was overwhelming; but it was not the way. Still, he kept on glancing at the clock on the wall and falling silent in the middle of conversations, because he could not forget that a whole month would pass in the system by the end of the day.

 

  There was something maddening in the slowness of time on the Grid: something he had always found terrifying, even before he had gotten trapped down there. The idea of such extended periods of time: a whole year went by there if he could not get there and visit them for a week. And he could not imagine it, the mindset of a program; he kept on asking Tron, wondering about the monotony of their lives:

 

  “Don’t you get bored?”

 

  “No,” Tron answered. “This is how it should be.”

 

  Now, after more than a thousand cycles, Flynn was pondering whether the continuity of the suffering and abuse had made Tron change his mind about the matter and that idea made his old soul weep.

 

  Around lunch time he went to see Quorra: she did not step out from her room since the night before. She was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants. The same associate had brought those from a nearby high-end clothing store, who had come to take measurements for Flynn’s suit and had returned with the ready piece soon after in the morning. There were the cold remains of a full breakfast in the room: Quorra must have ordered everything from the menu and took only a few bites from every dish, experimentally.

 

  She looked up when he entered the room. Her hair was disheveled: for that and for the color that had begun to fill her face, her appearance was less otherworldly now. Quorra was holding a magazine in her hand: a real estate catalogue. She held out the paper and pointed at one of the pages: it was a modern, two-storey house on the hills. He understood immediately why it had caught Quorra’s eyes: it was similar to the safehouse on the Grid.

 

  Quorra dropped the magazine and stood up. She was smaller than she had been before: her boots were gone so as the armored suit; now she was a simple, young woman with an uncertain smile on her face.

 

  “Are we done?” she asked. Once again she was ready to go, ready for the battle; she did not know yet that there would be no fight, not the way she expected it.

 

  “Soon,” Flynn replied. She turned at the window: the panel was open and a pillow was resting on the seat. She must have spent plenty of time sitting there, watching the sky, watching the sun she had wished to see so much.

 

  “Can you recommend a good doctor?” asked Flynn from Alan Bradley. It was in the evening: they were both exhausted. Alan came from work; had he have any conversation with Sam about Flynn, he did not mention it.

 

  “Are you sick?” asked Alan, worried now. He looked at Flynn and then at Quorra. They were in the garage under the hotel building. Quorra was sitting in the back seat of a black SUV already, behind the driver. They were waiting for Flynn; they had checked out from the hotel earlier. They were leaving for another hotel for now; Flynn had had his papers delivered earlier that day. If somebody saw them in the parking lot, they saw two men in long topcoats, talking casually.

 

  “We are fine,” he replied.

 

  “Do you need a specialist?”

 

  “Rather a general practitioner. It doesn’t really matter though: I need somebody committed. Committed to people, not to checkbooks.”

 

  Alan nodded.

 

  “I will call you tomorrow with her information,” he said. He glanced at the car again.

 

  “Alan,” said Flynn. “Thank you for your help. Thank you for not asking questions. But if there is anything you need to know now, ask.”

 

  “Fine,” replied Alan and went on without hesitation. “Is she your kid?

 

  “Yes,” he answered immediately. He found himself somewhat grateful that Alan did not ask if she was his mistress. This other assumption was devastating as well – but he could take that; it was close enough to the truth. Alan nodded, almost absent-mindedly. They both got in their vehicles; the SUV left the garage first and drove away on the brightly lit street.

 

 

 

V.

 

  The city view was startlingly similar to what they had seen from the terrace of the Grid safehouse. Now, that the blanket of darkness hid the nearby houses and the trees, it was all about the lights: the buildings down there, the boulevards, the headlights of the cruising vehicles – and the stars above.

 

  Kevin Flynn sat close to the glass wall. It was quiet after a long day, after meetings with lawyers. By then all his properties had been returned to him – except for the ENCOM shares and the belonging rights, just as Sam had promised. It was somehow disdainful from his son’s side, how quickly he had given back everything, money, other stocks, copyrights, properties; as if he intended to show his neglect, concerning all those possessions. Had Sam tried and objected, it would have resulted a very long legal process. The company was a different matter: he, Kevin Flynn had been legally dead for twenty years – and he had been only the main shareholder of ENCOM, not the only one. Regardless of Sam’s reluctance, the rest of the owners were not enthusiastic about getting him, Flynn back to the board either. For all those reasons it seemed like the only way for him to get back the company was to file a lawsuit. He began to consider that option: more than a week had gone by since he had left the system – almost two cycles. He attempted to quit measuring time according to the timekeeping of the Grid: he had to stop doing that if he wanted to stay sane.

 

  He bought the house that Quorra had found on the first day: because it was better than to live in hotels, because it was ready to move in and because he wanted to give her something she wanted. They barely had time to talk since their arrival, nobody showed her around or took an expert look to see if she was fine physically and yet Quorra kept up the good spirit and did not complain. Now, that the time came Flynn found himself wary about inviting an outsider and revealing her to them. But then, keeping the secret would have been a waste; that option was out of consideration.

 

  There was no contact between him and his son: except for a disastrous phone conversation Flynn did not have the chance to talk to him. It was devastating, this unforgiving rejection, to be aware of what was going on behind the scenes and to remember the bright little kid his son had once been. He was afraid that as time would pass and more and more damage would be done, he would be unable to forgive Sam.

 

  “He has always been a good kid,” Alan Bradley said one day, answering Flynn’s question. “Quite a loner, but popular anyway – one that would give the shirt off his back to somebody in need. You will see the books, how much from your fortune has been given to charity. It changed a few weeks ago… _He_ changed. Became so serious, determined…”

 

  Alan fell silent and looked at Flynn. He knew what Alan implied: that it had been some sort of discovery, regarding him, Flynn, which had prompted that shift. And he was ready for that, to take the responsibility, yet he remained silent and cut off the conversation. Later he remembered another one, which had taken place centuries before.

 

  “You will like him,” he told the program. They were in a workshop: around them dozens of other programs were laboring. “It is too early for now, but one day I would introduce Sam to the Grid. It will happen and you will be good friends. You’re a real hero for him already.”

 

  “Sure,” Tron had replied with a polite smile: now, years later Flynn felt as if such memories would be driving him insane.

 

  Alan was constantly busy: they were working on a new project at ENCOM. Alan did not talk about it as he was very careful about separating his personal and professional commitments, yet soon Flynn figured that it was some not exactly computer related gadget they were working on. He knew it then: it was something, which had been designed in the system, something big. An actual result; something that he had failed to deliver after years and something that Sam had managed to accomplish after a few weeks.

 

  He had not been invited to Alan’s house. That was not unexplained: Lora Baines refused to see him. Flynn got that and even understood it; she was the same caring and warm-hearted person he had once met, the one, who had acted first when injustice had happened and somebody had been mistreated. But this time it was Flynn, who was wrong in her eyes, he was in charge for all the misfortune and the fact that he offered no explanations, proved her right. There should have been an honest talk between them before thinking about forgiveness – Flynn was not prepared for that.

 

  Lights of an airplane appeared on the dark sky and moved across the star-spotted field. A view he had thought he would not see again; back, when he had gotten trapped in another system for the first time. It had been so long ago, it felt like another life. It had taken years for him later to figure the events that had taken place there: to figure what the MCP had done. It was an actual surprise for him to realize that the MCP and its followers, the enemy had been on a higher level in the digital evolution than other, regular programs – they had not required User input anymore, they had become independent. The Master Control Program had wished to overtake and control the world according to its different standards – and nobody knew, how close that program had been to hack into the Pentagon and other government systems before Tron had taken it down.

 

  Flynn remembered that discovery later, after everything had changed in a way he had never thought it could be possible. They were at one of his retreats, a quiet, hidden place in the city. He was sitting lazily on a couch while Tron’s head was resting in his lap. Flynn looked down at him and remembered; and knew that the people, the world would never learn about it, about how close they had come to the disaster. The Reds might have been more developed AIs, but they had not had human thinking, the kind of consideration that could have foreseen that merely logical actions would have led to a catastrophe in the User world. Tron was unaware of the extent of his deed; he had just done his job. People did not know about that, only him, Flynn – he was the one to show appreciation and gratefulness, to reward this creature somehow.

 

  “And so I did,” he whispered. Even though he told Tron that Users could be wicked and unreasonable just the same, the program never believed him; he just smiled and shook his head in a way so that it was not disrespectful, but clearly showed that Tron thought Flynn was teasing him. He thought that the MCP had been some kind of evil deviation, something, which had had nothing to do with User intentions. That was another matter the program must have changed his views about in the younger Flynn’s hands. Flynn could not and probably did not even dare to imagine what Tron must have thought about Users now – assuming that he was still thinking, that had not lost his sanity in the process already.

 

  That scene that he had seen replayed from Gem’s disc, haunted him. Everything was wrong, twisted about it and it informed him about one more important thing: that Sam managed to do what his father had been incapable of – to cooperate with Clu. The system administrator could have killed Sam or could have simply held him back until the portal closed. Instead of that Sam convinced Clu that it was safe to let him go, and he did that in a very limited period of time. Surely, the instinct to live would make one ingenious, but it had been more than that – those two were working together since then. That was because his son had gone to the Grid looking for him, looking for a father – and while Flynn had not showed, Clu had been there. Flynn might have regretted creating his own clone a million times – that did not change the fact that Clu was _him_. It was devastating, witnessing Clu’s actions from the distance throughout the cycles, knowing that it had been always him, Flynn, that whatever horror had taken place, it had originated from him. And lastly: Tron… Flynn had seen programs shutting down without apparent injuries, like the ones that had gone offline after a Grid bug attack, simply from the distress. But he had not thought that he would ever see that happening to Tron. He remembered how proud the program had always been; how much that public humiliation must have hurt his pride.

 

  That was the main reason why he had to get Sam to listen: because his son had gone too far already, because Flynn was uncertain already if there was a chance to reconcile, if there would be a way back. He understood Sam’s reasoning, that he needed someone to blame – because doing that was easier than to accept the fact that it was simple misfortune and shortsightedness which had caused all the misery. What had Sam seen if he had acquired Tron’s disc? That the program had been seducing him, that he had been pushing Flynn in every possible way? Truly so, but that was only one side of the story: Sam had not been there with them during the years, he had not experienced the loss, the desperation, the loneliness. Their actions could be interpreted in different ways; Sam had met an unearthly creature, that bore some resemblance to Alan Bradley, but otherwise had been changed to something else, and his son had drawn his conclusions right away.

 

  Flynn remembered that day: he had been already worn out when he had arrived to the city. He had put down Sam before leaving from home: his mother had been staying at the house for the night. Flynn had to meet Clu and their conversation was just as tense as he had expected it to be. There was a tension building up between them at that time and that made their cooperation difficult. Once done with his duties he left and got on his bike. The portal was a shining column of light in the distance: he knew that all the denizens of the system were aware of his arrival, _him_ amongst them. The stress melted off of him as he was riding through the city: his other home, a so much simpler one than the real world.

 

  Heated kisses, strong, but very gentle hands on him, trying to please him – and still he kept on looking away, he still avoided looking at Tron. The program stopped and now Flynn glanced at him. He saw the confusion: it was very much at the beginning and the program was worried that Flynn had changed his mind and was going to refuse him. The reason of his hesitation was different: Tron wore the young Alan Bradley’s appearance and Flynn had hard time looking at him now, that he was holding him in his arms. Had Alan known about any of this, he would have despised Flynn for it – because he was not supposed to do any of that, he should have known better. Warily he reached out and touched Tron’s face.

 

  “The way you look like…” he started. Tron grew pale and he reached behind his shoulder quickly. He offered his disc to the User; and Flynn did not understand the gesture until he looked at the program again. Tron was alarmed – by the idea of not being desirable enough for the User’s attention.

 

  “Not desirable enough,” he whispered now; the tears of regret were burning his eyes. “Oh, God.”

 

  Tron had been so proud of his similarity to Alan Bradley; he gave it away and never complained about it later. And Flynn did not think about the consequences, that there could be questions, from others and from Clu, and Tron might not have the answers. Somehow he always felt that the affair was between them and nobody else cared about it. He was wrong about that as he was wrong about so many other things – that was how he got here and how Tron ended up leashed to Sam’s throne, in that Siren suit. That little detail was the last thing, the last slap in the face, which let him know that Clu had been listening when he had been mumbling drunkenly, that what had been a game for him, had been the only reality for others.

 

  The floor creaked behind him and Flynn turned there. Quorra was standing there in a t-shirt and shorts. She had finished exploring the house and the surroundings. There was an impatient, almost nervous look on her face.

 

  “How long are we supposed to wait?” she asked. Flynn watched her for a few seconds: the miracle, incarnated. She was also a human with own needs and emotions.

 

  “Waiting for what?” he asked. Quorra started to walk up and down.

 

  “We could get a few people,” she said. “Get in the building at nighttime and remove the hardware.”

 

  He was silent for a while. So that was she had been thinking about – he should have known that. Not the User world she had been craving for, not the new things, smells, foods and apparently she was not worried about the meeting with the doctor the next day. Quorra was looking at him expectantly.

 

  “We have to do something,” she insisted.

 

  “I will do something,” he nodded.

 

  “When? We should…”

 

  “What about the building security?” he asked.

 

  “What?”

 

  “Do you have a plan, which does not include the murder of ENCOM employees?” he asked. Quorra was staring at him. “I will get it back. I will get them back. But the Grid is not something you can actually steal. It needs to be shut down properly and should you drop it, it could be gone forever. And then we did not talk about the laser yet.”

 

  She was still staring.

 

  “How long will it take?” she asked. “Every minute here is an hour down there. Every week is a year.”

 

  Flynn recognized those words: he had used to tell her that, back at the beginning of their exile.

 

  “It will be a long day tomorrow,” he said. “Why don’t you get some rest?”

 

  Quorra was glaring at him silently, then she turned and went upstairs. He stayed seated. She was not supposed to deal with that: she had an own life that had just begun here. She did not have to know about the struggle that would come, what would appear to the public as a shameful tug of war about money, between him and his son. She did not have to hear that there was no victory coming at the end, for the damage that had been done already. Flynn did hope that there would be _something_ to save – but he did not have illusions. He wished, he dearly wished to get back the system once again, to get the chance to delete Clu right away and reinstate Tron. Yet he knew that even that program would not be able to take everything, that most probably there would be nothing to restore anymore. And if there was nothing to save, if deresolution was a merciful act, then Flynn wanted him to die, to let him dissolve into foam, like it had happened to that other siren, to the one that had once asked love from a man similarly and had been punished for that deed just the same.

 

 

VI.

 

   The next day Quorra woke up early. That was not unusual: she liked to watch the sunrise and go out for a walk in the morning. Now the reason was different: a doctor would come and see her – she would come to figure is she was a User now indeed and they would learn if her arrival would mean a real change for this world.

 

  It was good to look forward that visit, it was something to derail Quorra’s thoughts, so she would not be thinking about the Grid all the time.

 

  “From where do you know her?” asked Flynn from Alan Bradley the other day.

 

  “Her brother, dr. Singh, works for the company. We met at a Christmas party at ENCOM.”

 

  Quorra was listening to them from the other room. She was more comfortable like that, not being actually present, event though they did not mind to have her around. Quorra was happy to see Alan Bradley on a daily basis: his voice and tranquil presence was reassuring, something which made her believe that things would be fine.

 

  “She just returned from Chennai,” Alan Bradley explained. “That is where she is practicing in the other half of they year. Now she would be here for six months.”

 

  From the following silence Quorra knew that Flynn liked the answer. She felt it: even though they were not alone together anymore and in his new, User-like attire Flynn was more like the other people around them, it was still him, the Creator. Back in the cycles ISOs had liked to say that they had not had anything to do with him, that he had not designed them; but without the Grid the ISOs could not have come to existence at the first place.

 

  She was very excited in the morning; she could barely take a few bites from her breakfast. The agent that had sold the house had recommended the staff which had worked for the previous owners and so they had a cook now, a woman that came to clean the rooms and a gardener, who visited them once a week to mow the lawn and clean the pool. None of them were prying people. The cook was overwhelmed by Quorra’s requests; soon it turned out that her eyes always wanted more, but he made all the dishes she asked for anyway. She wanted to try everything, even if many things were very different from what she imagined and the whole business about digestion was somewhat repelling for her. That more or less described her feelings about the User world at that point: Quorra was delighted and appalled at the same time.

 

  The doctor arrived before noon. Quorra was lurking from upstairs as Flynn and the guest sat down in the drawing room. The doctor was a female in her thirties, with long, black hair and dark, brown skin. Quorra found her very interesting: until then she had seen people being servile and extremely attentive with Flynn; this woman was simply polite. She sat down, accepted the coffee which was offered and looked at him straight in the eye, waiting. From the way Flynn leant back in his seat Quorra could tell that he was impressed as well.

 

  They were talking; Quorra heard fragments of the conversation and watched their gestures. He would not tell the truth: Quorra knew that. But he had to give some explanation and he had to make the decision if this woman was the right choice to start working with. The talk was long, very long and she was not expecting to be called anymore, when she heard her name. Quorra jumped on her feet and went downstairs. Flynn and the guest stood up and looked at her as she was approaching.

 

  “Quorra?” the woman asked and shook her hand. “I am doctor Kaur.”

 

  Quorra smiled and looked at her own hand. It was User-like to greet somebody like that. She felt the other woman’s eyes on her: but it was not obtrusive – it was kind. She was briefly examined: Quorra’s skin was tingling from the sensation of the touches; she had not been touched since long. At the end dr. Kaur brought out a syringe and took some blood from her. It hurt, but Quorra was amazed to see the red liquid which filled the tube: blood! Blood and nothing else: another proof that she was a human now.

 

  In the afternoon she was reading. Newspapers and magazines: for now Flynn advised her against using computers and other electronic gadgets. It would be confusing, he said and Quorra agreed. The anxiety returned as it happened many times when she was alone. The feeling of helplessness filled her and it was as if the air would have been sucked out of the room. She had to get up and go out to the terrace, from where she could see the burning light of the sunset. That sight was only hers: nobody else from the system would ever get to see it. Only two kinds of programs would leave the Grid, Flynn had told her once, only those with complex coding would be able to survive the transmission. ISOs… and Clu. But the ISOs were gone and Clu stayed on the Grid... he stayed home. Quorra flinched. She did not know why that idea came into her mind; this was her home now. During the cycles she had gotten enough of the system, of being hunted. And the rest, the other programs would never come, never escape. That idea brought her back to the one, who had always been there when there had been a need, but for whom nobody had raised a finger, who had never meant to be saved. She remembered the rumors which had spread in the city, about that deadly, dark warrior that had emerged after the fall of the ISOs. Rinzler was quick and lethal: a champion of the Arena and the watcher of the street – Clu’s favorite. He must have been recreated from another program: he wore Tron’s circuitry, but the Creator had seen Tron dying. Still, Quorra could not forget the horrible suspicion she had felt when she had spotted the program on the street. She was lying on the top of a smaller building, waiting for the patrol to come, because she wanted to see that infamous creature. She was even more confused and worried when she returned home after that. Flynn was sitting on his pillow in the central chamber: floating away. Quorra walked to him and talked, about what she had seen, about the red, familiar circuits, about that distinctive limberness. And Flynn understood her; she could see the painful glance before his eyes closed: but instead of waking him up, that information, that last stab straight in the heart just sent him down. And when he came back to her, they never talked about it again – because there was nothing to say, nothing to do. They forgot the dead, they forgot whatever they had lost. They forgot.

 

  “Never,” she whispered, with tears in her eyes, still looking at the city. Silently she vowed; that she would not forget, would not forgive – that she would find a way to save the one they had betrayed.

 

 

VII.

 

  He knew it, he knew since she had walked through the door with that changed expression on her face: Flynn knew that the doctor had figured a few things since their last conversation. At the first time dr. Kaur had been courteous and attentive, yet obviously not interested: now she was intent, very much ware.

 

  “What is she?” dr. Kaur asked once they got inside. Flynn did not stir: there was nobody around. Quorra was gone for a few hours, walking in the neighborhood. She was irreplaceable and an accident would have ended all the mighty dreams; yet there had been no way for him to say no when she had come up with her request. Quorra could not have a life of an average human being, but that did not mean that her existence in the real would was meant to be miserable and she would be a prisoner. “Where is she from?”

 

  “I told you before,” he said, “that I can not provide you with an explanation. Not yet.”

 

  Dr. Kaur was staring at Flynn. He saw the deliberation: the mystery was bothering her, but whatever she had found while examining the blood sample, kept her back from leaving. He understood that. An idealist, who had dedicated her life to others: exactly that was what he wanted, why he had considered her passion about humanity as the most important thing. Because it had to be started somehow and he needed allies.

 

  “She is perfect,” dr. Kaur said. “Yes, there are people with lucky genes. This is something entirely different. Evolution is an ongoing process for every species. She is what humankind would be, if it would be genetically corrected by thousand of years evolution and mutations. Or human DNA, redesigned by a computer.”

 

  It was a bold shot and it almost made him flinch. Then Flynn realized that she just drew her own consequences: ENCOM was a computer technology corporation and he was a software designer.

 

  “There is no software capable of handling human DNA,” he said after a short moment. “Less building or redesigning a whole person.”

 

  She nodded slowly. It was impossible: impossible by the known level of technology.

 

  “What did you find?” he asked. For long moments she was standing there, thinking.

 

  “O Rh D negative blood,” she said at the end. “Universal donor. Impeccable results: red and white blood cells, proportions, platelet volume, glucose… Everything is right at the ideal value, as it would be the blood of a very healthy individual.”

 

  “Would be?”

 

  “I made a hemoculture. There was not any kind of virus or infection to locate. Out of curiosity I exposed the hemoculture to the virus of flu. It should have infected it, but it did not. By then the hemoculture was worthless, unusable for further examinations, and I did not have that much anyway. So there was no point not to try to infect it again. Pneumonia did not make it. The virus of common wart. Nothing. Lastly I tried herpes simplex. It did not touch it.”

 

  “What does that mean?” he asked. She almost snarled.

 

  “You have to tell me, what that means,” dr. Kaur said. “How is this possible? I am a not a virologist, I don’t have access to other, dangerous viruses. But what would have happened, had I exposed that blood to HIV virus or rabies? Would have those infected it?”

 

  “I don’t know,” said Flynn.

 

  “Hemocultures from the same donor could be used to create serums against all those diseases. Any of them and all of them. Do you understand what I am talking about?”

 

  “I clearly understand you.”

 

  “And this is not just about viral infections. This can be a cure for pre-existing conditions as well.”

 

  “That is possible,” said Flynn. She stopped and glared at him. He knew that fever: that was the same fever with which he had run around twenty years before, which had almost taken his sanity. He had planned this conversation, many years ago and then for a hundred times during the exile. He had just never thought that it would actually take place one day. “It is up to you now to find out.”

 

  “How do you mean that?”

 

  “Do you want to know what she means to the world, to medicine? I want to know, but I need doctors to figure out and use it. Without actually killing her in the process or making her life unlivable. I need people that understand the importance of this discovery, but recognize it as a gift to the world, not to their wallets. Because we have to find the way to make the most out of it, knowing that there is only one shot, as she is the only one.”

 

  She was thinking.

 

  “What do you expect from me?” she asked. “I have my own practice.”

 

  “I expect many things. If you want to be involved, you have to pledge secrecy and make sure that there would be a limited number of people that know, from where the hemocultures, cells or tissues would be coming from. I need you to tell names of people, who would be willing to join the project, capable people, whose main interest is not money. There will be money, you know that, yet I still need doctors, that consider that part as secondary. If you don’t know such people, you will have to find some. And then, stay involved. Help to put this together. I don’t expect you to abandon your practice and your clients. But by now you know very well, that this project is about a lot more. As a doctor you are able to ease suffering, to help individuals. Putting your effort in this, you might be able to help or even save millions, that would be in pain otherwise or would die before time.”

 

  Dr. Kaur was standing there with an unreadable face.

 

  “Does Quorra know about it?” she asked. “Does she know what is waiting for her? We live in the 21st century, we don’t have to perform a vivisection to get results. But there will be pain, sometimes significant. When the experiments begin, we will need blood, tissues, bone-marrow. She will be the guinea pig in this project. Is she ready for that?”

 

  “She is ready,” he said. “But how could she give her consent without actually being there? She can change her mind any time. That decision will be respected. At this point this is the most we can tell. What other questions do you have?”

 

  “Just one,” she said. “When do I start?”

 

VIII.

 

  The press conference was held in the morning. They met downstairs after breakfast: Quorra was wearing a little, black dress she had bought for the event. She was not going to be an active participant, but she was excited anyway. Flynn was already down there in his black suit. He had regained his old energy, his own active self – less the recklessness of the young Creator she had once known. His look was the same, his wise eyes, graying hair, someone of good standing; the master of the Grid. But his old, distinctive cape was gone and Flynn was wearing that black suit with a tie. She walked to him with a bright smile on her face; she reached out and touched the knot on the tie in a fashion she had seen Users doing it on the street. Flynn smiled. It was a proud expression: Quorra managed to make him proud once again. By then it had been weeks that the experiments had been proceeding, with reassuring results.

 

  “Are you sure about her?” asked Quorra from Flynn, after they first met dr. Kaur. “Can we trust her?”

 

  “With people, you can never tell,” he replied after short consideration. “But she is a good person.”

 

  She was looking at him curiously.

 

  “She is trying to keep everyone alive, forever. Even the ones who must die in the end. They’re the most important to keep alive*,” he recited. Quorra understood it and nodded. Since then the doctor’s actions confirmed Flynn’s first assumptions: she worked hard on the new project and brought other people aboard. Once it started, they began to gather, mainly young doctors and medics, with that particular approach to their profession what Flynn wanted to see.

 

  “I want you to know something,” he said. They were about to leave for the press conference. “I filed the court papers for the company. Sam will receive them later today.”

 

  Her eyes widened.

 

  “He will not talk to me and he leaves me no other choice,” he said. “I still wish that we could work this out, especially since the legal proceedings would last very long.”

 

  “How long?”

 

  “One year, probably.”

 

  Quorra nodded slowly. Her initial delight faded.

 

  The car took them to the location of the press conference. It was a temporary place, reserved only for this event: Flynn did not want to reveal their home neither the address of his new company yet. There were dozens of cars and satellite vans parking outside of the building by the time they arrived.

 

  They separated before Flynn walked to the room which was filled by journalists and photographers. Quorra joined dr. Kaur and they sat down in the first row. Many of Flynn’s new employees took seats around them. The journalists jumped on their feet and the flashlights would not stop blinking when Flynn entered the room.

 

  They were listening to him, to the questions and the answer he gave. Quorra’s heart was thumping: it was real, everything was real. They were going to change the world. Dr. Kaur sensed her anxiety and gave her an encouraging smile. Quorra smiled back and looked at Flynn again. Their escape, their newly found life, everything was real; had not she laugh in the garden the day before, when she had first seen a mole, had not she cried out when they had first taken bone marrow from her and it had hurt? It was real, but so was the other world, the one they had left behind, the invisible one. Now she knew that there had been steps taken to get it back; still, would it work? Would not the long wait make the whole attempt failed? She could not stop wondering about that: she had to take action on her own.

 

  Quorra’s thoughts went back to the car which had taken them here. It was a black Escalade with a driver, who now worked for them. Many times he drove Quorra around, took her to the examinations, to stores and other places she wished. She did not have documents, but she had a credit card and a cell phone. Not that she was going on shopping sprees or making too many phone calls. Yet it was fine: it made everything easier – because there was work to do. She could understand Flynn, if he refused to actually clash with his son: she accepted that decision, but that did not mean that she intended to follow suit. There was a solution, and that solution was in front of them, Quorra knew that. In the house she browsed through old newspapers and photos; the history of ENCOM after Flynn’s disappearance. There had to be somebody with the will to take the system from Sam Flynn, with the technical knowledge to accomplish the deed and with goodwill, so he would not misuse the power as the young Flynn was doing. After long search Quorra found this person; her future ally.

 

  Quorra was looking at Flynn who was answering the questions patiently. It was for his good too, she thought, and it was for everyone’s good. The denizens of the Grid would soon to be saved and the Users would be given a chance to reconcile, without having to fight over the system. Just two days before the press conference Quorra was sitting in the back seat of the car which was parked behind the ENCOM building. From there she could see the entrance of the underground parking lot which belonged to the company. It was around six in the afternoon and the vehicles were leaving the building one by one. Soon she spotted the dark blue Prius she was waiting for. She had seen that car before when she had been lurking around the building earlier.

 

  “Follow that car,” she asked the driver. They were moving slowly on the busy streets. The trip was short and the blue car stopped in the parking lot of a popular, modern eatery.

 

  “Wait for me, please,” said Quorra and she got out of the car. She walked to the door of the bistro and entered the place. Soft music filled the air inside and smell of coffee. People were sitting at the tables and at the bar; mostly young men and women in business causal attire. Waiters and waitresses delivered food on large trays to the tables. Quorra was turning her head until she spotted the one she was looking for. A young man in light sweater, with brown hair and intense, blue eyes behind his glasses. He was sitting at a table in the company of another young man and a woman, ENCOM employees as well.

 

  “Hey,” said Quorra when she got to them. “Mind if I share your table? They have full house.”

 

  They looked up at her, mildly surprised. The young man with the eyeglasses smiled back at her.

 

  “Sure,” he said and moved to make place for her. Quorra sat down and turned to him.

 

_Edward Dillinger Jr._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * John Irving: The World According to Garp


	9. Bright Lights, Big City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tron!” little Sam had exclaimed. “He fights for the users.”
> 
> Flynn had laughed. 
> 
> “He sure does,” he had said. “Oh man, he showed me things that no one had ever imagined, disc battles fought in spectacular arenas and cycles that raced on ribbons of light. So radical. And together…”
> 
> “You built the Grid.”
> 
> “We built a new Grid, for programs and users,” his father had replied. 
> 
> Sam put down the apple and pressed his gloved hands against the tabletop. All the lies, all the deception; and they all expected him, Sam to forgive, to understand, to let go. He howled from the frustration and the anger and he swept down all the appliances from the table with a furious stroke. Everything fell on the floor with sharp jingling. Sam let out a hysterical laugh. Slowly he turned and looked at the view again; the lights of the city were blinking in the distance. No, he was not going to let go; and he knew exactly what he was going to do instead. Sam turned and left the residence with quick, long steps.

 

 

 

 

I.

 

  The elevator took him to a large room. There were no hidden traps; the platform came to a stand quietly in the living room. It was dark. There came some white light from the plate under his feet and the walls were also illuminated by smaller light sources. There was an open terrace on the other end of the room, with a clear view to the city, which was a small, bright dot in the distance. Sam touched the wall and activated the lights. The floor lit up, along with lamps on the ceiling and a chandelier which was also part of the appliances.

 

  Most of the furniture was white. On his left there was a comfortable chair with a lamp and a small table. In line with those, closer to the terrace four other chairs were standing. On the right side there was a dining table with four chairs; the chandelier was hanging above this section. There was also a fireplace with two more armchairs and a sofa. So much furniture: Sam assumed that they had never used most of those. It was the mixture of modern and antique. The walls were uncovered; it was the black slate of Grid-material. Next to the elevator a white light cycle was parked. Sam resisted the urge to go there and examine it. On the left side of the platform there was a Go board with two sitting pillows on the sides. The game had left suspended – and it would never be finished now. Behind him there was a shelf, packed with books.

 

  Sam went inside. His footsteps echoed loudly in the large space. No air – no space, he reminded himself, just illusion. In the middle there were two pillows placed on top of each other. He crouched down and touched the pillow on the top. Soon he recognized: it was a spot for meditation. The pillows had a hexagonal pattern on them. Sam straightened himself and looked back at the Go board. His father had been playing with the ISO there – nobody had taught him, Sam, how to play that game. On the left, the closest to the terrace there was an alcove. The room did not have a door: the only furniture inside was a large bed. On a shelf Sam spotted a framed picture. He grabbed it when he recognized it; it was him, as a child with his mother. That picture must have been digitized from a real photo more than twenty years ago – and had been standing on that shelf for a thousand cycles. That was something; not much, but something. Sam put down the picture and looked at the bed. For some reason he found it comforting to know that Tron had never been here with Flynn, that they had never laid in this bed together.

 

  The fireplace was dark; above that there were ornaments standing on the shelf and an old clock. It was odd: it counted time by the hour, not by the timekeeping of the system. There were two Yoshimoto Cubes in front of the clock. Sam picked up one of those and looked at it. His father would have bought a pair for him probably, had he not been lost. The boy turned and walked to the dining table. The chandelier above it was a fine piece; he touched a crystal curiously. It felt real and it sounded real, as the crystal parts tingled. On the dining table two candlesticks were standing. Instead of candles they held one-one crystal sticks. There were things that just could not be transported here, the boy thought.

 

  In a metallic basket there lay a few chrome globes – no, not globes. Those were apples, tiny, inedible, useless pieces. Sam picked up one and looked at it closely. He saw his own, distorted reflection on the surface.

 

  “And the world was more beautiful than I ever dreamed, and also, more dangerous than I ever imagined. Hop, to bed now,” his father had said in his memories. “Now, I met a brave warrior…”

 

  “Tron!” little Sam had exclaimed. “He fights for the users.”

 

  Flynn had laughed.

 

  “He sure does,” he had said. “Oh man, he showed me things that no one had ever imagined, disc battles fought in spectacular arenas and cycles that raced on ribbons of light. So radical. And together…”

 

  “You built the Grid.”

 

  “We built a new Grid, for programs and users,” his father had replied.

 

  Sam put down the apple and pressed his gloved hands against the tabletop. All the lies, all the deception; and they all expected him, Sam to forgive, to understand, to let go. He howled from the frustration and the anger and he swept down all the appliances from the table with a furious stroke. Everything fell on the floor with sharp jingling. Sam let out a hysterical laugh. Slowly he turned and looked at the view again; the lights of the city were blinking in the distance. No, he was not going to let go; and he knew exactly what he was going to do instead. Sam turned and left the residence with quick, long steps.

 

 

II.

 

  He was watching the street from the window of his office. It was busy outside; cars lined up at the traffic lights and the walkway was full of people – office clerks on their lunch breaks. Grey clouds were hanging above the buildings. He was anxious and the minutes of waiting grew long. The door of the office was open and he sensed that he was not alone. Sam turned.

 

  “Why don’t you go home?” asked Alan Bradley. He was holding a cup in his hand. “It can take a while.”

 

  He came in and offered the cup to Sam. Just when he took it, did the boy realize that his hands were shaking mildly. Outside his office people were working, talking and walking in the hall; an ordinary weekday. But there was a tension, a nervous, expectant feeling – the day before a federal investigation had started against the company.

 

  “It is not dangerous,” said Sam. He had repeated it several times since the small convoy of dark cars had arrived the previous day. “We sold two hundred thousand of those devices by now. There was not a single accident we’ve heard of. Cars are not bursting out in flames after the installation; vehicles are not getting out of control and run against the wall. It just makes them consume less fuel.”

 

  Alan Bradley laughed. Sam knew that there was no need to tell him such things: Alan was one of the first people to get the new ENCOM gadget installed in his car.

 

  “Yes. And it makes them buy less fuel. Much less fuel. Actually, I am surprised that it took this long for the authorities to realize what is going on.”

 

  Sam looked at him inquisitively.

 

  “I mean, there have been all kinds of other related ideas. Special mixtures of fuel, other gadgets that they sell, promising to lower the fuel consumption of cars.”

 

  “Exactly. And it is legal, the government is not going after them.”

 

  “Because those gadgets are not working, or they do, but they don’t make much difference. Your invention does.”

 

  Sam turned back at the window and took a sip from the cup.

 

  “Like it makes a difference for them,” he said. “This doesn’t change the quantity of fuel they sell to energy plants or to airlines.”

 

  “Are you talking about scales? Well, after selling two hundred thousand of it, it apparently did make a difference, enough to raise interest. If they installed just half of those, that would mean that a hundred thousand cars did not refuel in the last two weeks. And that number is growing day by day. You don’t have to be explained that this is the last thing what oil companies want, do you?”

 

  Sam did not reply. He was watching the street.

 

  “Will they shut it down?” he asked after a few minutes. “Will they make us stop the manufacturing?”

 

  Alan was considering.

 

  “No,” he said. “Oh, they would do it if they could, I bet. This new ENCOM product is pulling the money out from their pockets and will pull out more if it stays on the market. But they can not do it. It is out already, people know about it. It has never been advertised, but it has gotten round and it is in the media too. It is too late.”

 

  Sam was looking at him, trying to believe.

 

  “I am not saying that they are not mad now,” said Alan. “It is money. For them it doesn’t matter that oil is a non-renewable source and that the environment can not take more. They would push it anyway. And it is big, Sam. They will lose money, lose power. The international relations with other countries will change; I am talking about the OPEC. We can hope that it will bring a positive change, but nobody can see the future.”

 

  The boy looked at Alan.

 

  “You don’t believe in it, do you?” he asked.

 

  “I am using it too, did you forget?” asked Alan, but he did not look at Sam. He was contemplating. “We don’t care about the environment, Sam. This is the truth. If people are willing to buy and use this device, they do it to save money. If we cared, people would be riding buses, which would be fueled by natural gas. Instead of that all we have is the constant traffic jams, cars with one single passenger. Your invention is amazing and it might reduce the emission of exhaustion gas. But without the awareness behind, it will be all the same. People will not stop flying, will not stop using plastic bottles and bags. Nobody can be saved against their own will.”

 

  Sam was silent. Alan put his hand on his shoulder.

 

  “Go home now,” he said. “I’ll call you once we have an answer.”

 

 

III.

 

  After a long walk in the park with Marv, they went home. It was quiet and calm. Sam sat down to watch TV and found himself staring blankly, not paying any attention. Alan’s words had been reassuring about their chances; still, he could not stop thinking. What if he had been wrong? He was blaming his father for not using the system, for not taking advantage of the amazing opportunities – what if it had not been possible? What if the world simply did not want those inventions? And his father had realized this and that had made him keep the Grid as his private playground? The idea was unbearable.

 

  He turned down the television. It was getting dark. Sam missed his home in the system; the day before he had not gone to the Grid and he was going to skip it that night too. He hated to do so; during the months he had gotten used to it and not going gave him the feeling of losing valuable time. But now, with the investigation upon the company, he wanted time to go fast, to see the outcome as soon as possible. He could have gone there anyway, but he was too anxious and that would have made it difficult to get real work done. He missed it, the unambiguous decisions, the way programs approached problems. For them it would have not been a question, to choose between money, immediate profit and between the survival of their homeland. Sam missed that way of thinking. Any other night he would be lying in his bed in the Palace. It would be dark, except for the pale blue light of Tron’s circuitry next to him and it would be warm because of the heat which was always radiating from the program’s body.

 

  Sam remembered the shock he had felt when Clu had shut down the system with the emergency password. When Sam created the password he also added another update: he was going to get a text message in the unlikely case of a shutdown. He was riding his bike when it actually happened. It was Saturday morning: he left early to spend some time away from the city, from the company, from his life. The road was empty and the trees were only shadows on the two sides of the road. He noticed the message when he stopped for a short break and went still with his phone in his hand. There was a moment of panic, the urge to rush back to the city. Then he forced himself to calm down. Whatever had happened, that had prompted Clu to use the password, it was a done deal. The system had been saved and locked by now; panicking and rushing did not make any difference to the damage which had been done, if any. He got on his bike and headed back to the city, forcing himself not to speed. Getting into an accident and breaking his neck would not do any good to the Grid. Still, the boy could not stop thinking. _What happened? Why he did it?_

 

  The ENCOM building was almost empty when he got there. The elevator took him to the floor of the server room: everything was ordinary there; nobody had tried to enter the place since his last check in. He sat down and looked at the screen. He could not see anything special in the saved data, except for Clu’s code was missing. After short contemplation he decided not to start the system. Sam accessed Jayden and launched the program to gather some information. In a few seconds he got his answer; the city was safe, but Clu was in the process of being deleted. Sam could see him now, because Jayden moved there – to a sector which he recognized as the location of new constructions. Clu was there, part of his code missing, scattered. Jayden’s report also informed him about illegal activity of other programs in the area: an uprising.

 

 _Start it_ , his first thought was, _start the computer_. His hand moved already. Simply touching a button he could restart the system. Clu would have been deleted in an instant: he was damaged already and Sam could not even tell if he could be saved at all. When the Grid would be live again, the deletion process would finish and Clu would be gone. Sam felt the urge to do it. Nobody would have blamed him, nobody would have known, that there was a choice. Even he, he could have convinced himself, that there was nothing for him to do. And he wanted to push that button, to erase Clu. With the system administrator gone, the Grid would belong to him, Sam only. He would not have to feel that slight embarrassment he sometimes felt in Clu’s presence – because Clu had seen his real face, he knew what Sam was capable of, because Clu saw through him from the first moment.

 

  Then he stopped. He was about to do, he realized, what his father had done: betraying others that had trusted him. Clu could have killed Sam in the beginning, had he not believed in him, he could have killed him instead of letting him return home. Now it was his turn to show his real intentions. That idea made his hand froze in the air – and there was something else too.

 

  “Hey, what do you say tomorrow you and I hit the arcade?” his father had asked. That was long time ago, in another life. “You can have a crack at the old man's high score. First game's on me. **”**

  It was in the evening and Flynn was about to leave for work once again. He put on his leather jacket already. He threw a quarter at Sam, who was sitting in his bed, his head full of the fantastic tales and stories.

**“** Can we play doubles? On the same team?” he asked. His father turned back at the door and smiled at him.

 

  “We’re always on the same team,” he replied. That was the last time when Sam had seen him, the last time before he found Flynn on the Grid and for that he had never forgotten that face. And then he came to the Grid, was put in the Games and was escorted to the Throne Ship; and he saw that face again. That was the only time when Sam had mistaken them, his father and Clu for one another. Still, that was his father’s face and during the time that had passed since his arrival to the system, Sam had learnt that even with bringing Flynn back to the real world, Clu would be the most that he would get from the father, whose image had been with him for twenty years, the father he had imagined.

 

  He sighed and began to work. He took Clu out from the system and moved the involved programs in the area into a quarantine. After instructing Jayden and the guards he restarted the system. Once assured that they were able to handle the unrest, he went back to work on Clu’s coding. He fixed the code slowly, meticulously, without replacing the seriously damaged lines with copies from the backup version. It was almost in the evening when he finished.

 

 

IV.

 

  They did not talk much, when they first met after the coup. Sam noticed Clu’s suspicious look and he sensed that the system administrator knew somehow about his hesitation to bring him back. Clu did not ask why he had done it, though the question was there, unspoken, during the conversation. Sam was glad – what kind of answer could have he given? That he had acted because of some vague feelings?

 

  The city was the same: brightly lit streets, the flow of various vehicles and passersby on the sidewalk. Streaming data and nothing else, he reminded himself. But machines, soulless creatures did not rebel, did not conspire or fight against directions, as it had happened here. What was the point? Even with Clu gone, he, Sam was still there, on the other side of the computer, with his hand on the plug. Did they think that Sam was under Clu’s influence and without the system administrator he would change, that he was better than that? Sam did not like the idea.

 

  Speed. It was only him, the machine and the road – and it was easier here, without the pettiness of his own world. It was only the question of time when the lawsuit that his father had filed against him would go public and Sam could not even imagine the reaction which would follow. The ENCOM attorneys were positive about the case, but that did not change the fact that there was a long, nasty legal procedure ahead of them.

 

  He recalled Flynn’s press conference about his new venture; he remembered the unbelieving whispers after. A pharmaceutical company: first Sam thought he had misunderstood something. Then he realized that it was the ISO behind everything. He could not imagine what they were planning, but he did not like the idea at all. He had not heard about it since then, Alan Bradley, if he knew, did not talk about it. The ENCOM stocks were steady after the announcement and the release of the new ENCOM product.

 

  Jayden was standing on the top of the stairs when Sam arrived. That was the spot where she usually waited for him. There was expectation on her face, sometimes even the shadow of a smile. Later he would summon her and Jayden would submit a detailed report about the events that had taken place since his last visit. Later.

 

  The elevator stopped on the top floor. Two guards were standing motionlessly on the two sides of the lift, other than that the hall was empty. Sam walked to the door of his private quarters: it was locked, but upon his arrival it opened silently. The small vestibule was dark; after that there was the main room, empty, except for Tron, who was standing at the large window. He was watching the city through the glass; he did not turn when Sam came in. The boy walked to the bed and lay down. He stretched out, and looked at his data pad. After the unrest, now everything was back to normal: the sense of continuity gave him some relief. It was quiet and peaceful. Sam put down the pad and looked at Tron.

 

  The program was standing there motionlessly, without looking at him. He was watching the city, the streets – the city, which had been named after him, the streets where he would never walk again. Suddenly the boy remembered the shock he had felt upon discovering the shutdown, the guessing what might have been lost. Now he felt relaxed. His eyes were resting on the slender figure in that white dress. Tron was perfectly still as he was standing there, his face turned away and hidden from Sam. His circuitry was shining with a cyan hue, as if he was not afraid, as if he did not feel the hungry eyes set on him. Sam knew by then that he liked that spot, to watch the city lights. Very rarely and just for a short time he saw the program running, when he was working in the server room and took a look at the system status.

 

  “Come here,” said Sam. The program remained motionless; he pretended he had not heard the command. Only a barely noticeable twitch gave him away.

 

  “Don’t make me go there for you,” warned him Sam. Tron’s shoulders trembled and the program bowed his head. He turned slowly. He did not look at Sam, as he walked there – instead he was making careful side glances. He was looking for possible escape routes, Sam realized; but there was no way out from here, not for him. Tron stopped before Sam; he was staring at the floor. His face was expressionless – there was no anger, hate or fear; just that striking beauty.

 

  “On the bed,” said Sam. The program obeyed, or seemingly so: he sat down on the edge of the bed, out of reach, turned away, with his feet on the floor.

 

  “Very funny,” the boy growled and he sat up suddenly. He grabbed Tron’s waist and hooked an arm around it tightly. Tron was still staring in front of himself with neutral expression on his face. Sam nuzzled against his neck; the warm body strained in his arm for a moment. The program did not look at him; he had stopped trying to make eye-contact when he had given up talking to the boy. Sam took the program’s left wrist with his free hand and drove it to his own crotch. There was no resistance as he was rubbing Tron’s palm against his clothed erection, but the program’s half-hidden face was different now; defiant, angry. Sam’s grip became tighter on his wrist, crushing. The indignant expression slowly disappeared and gave its place to the pain. Tron was silent: Sam was not sure if it was some old pride, back from the days of a warrior, which kept him back from pleading or if the program simply knew that it would not make any difference.

 

  Sam released the program’s hand, took Tron’s chin and turned his face toward himself. A youthful face, or rather an ageless one; and it would not grow old, no matter how long time would pass. That reminded Sam of his father, who had come here as a young man. His grip became tighter around Tron’s waist, eliciting low, painful sounds from the program. The oldest creature at this place, older than anybody else, including him, Sam. Tron recoiled when the boy leaned closer for a kiss. Sam liked kissing and it turned him on – it must have had a way different meaning for programs as it always left Tron confused and embarrassed.

 

  As their lips parted, Sam looked down at the hands that were pressing against his chest. Tron was visibly distressed by then. The boy pulled him down and climbed on him right away to avert any fight; he was too excited to play now. As his hands trailed down on Tron’s side he recalled the first time when he had held the program in his arms. Back then he had not known how different programs were from humans: he had expected some physical reaction, even if accidentally. But this was not a human body under him; just a more or less realistic copy, without blood, organs or nerves inside. It was simply impossible for a program to get any enjoyment from a physical encounter with a User: so what had made Tron to go after Flynn? Why it had been so important to seduce him? Why?

 

  Sam lifted himself for a moment to get rid of his clothes. Tron put his hands on his own chest, on the spots where his suit was missing already; covering the glaring, blue light. Sam leaned ahead; the program trembled as the boy’s erection slid along his thighs. The white dress dissolved and the pale light of Tron’s circuitry got revealed. He cried out when Sam pushed inside him, tearing him up immediately. The boy was panting; for a moment he stopped and looked down. The program pressed his palm on his lips to muffle his cries. He reached there and pulled Tron’s hand away; he wanted to hear those whimpers. Tron looked up at him: his eyes were glazed. Sam groaned and began to move. Smooth skin under his fingers; finer, than human skin and without any flaws. He was rutting wildly, and his pleasure was building up quickly as he forced himself deeper and deeper in that tight, hot body. Sweat covered his body and his muscles tightened – he just wanted his release.

 

  He was almost there when he glanced down. He could not tell when Tron had fallen silent: he just noticed that the program was lying under him quietly and was watching him with an unreadable face. He must have been in pain, the white light of his circuits clearly indicated that, but his face was calm. Suddenly it occurred to Sam how he must have looked to the program as he was moving on him, sweating, with reddened face. He lost his rhythm.  

 

  “Don’t…” Sam groaned. He really wanted to hurt the program for this; but the sheet under them was already soaked by the energy which had poured out from that broken body. Sam closed his eyes and when he looked up again he met the same expressionless stare. No, not expressionless anymore: pitying. The boy was enraged: how did he dare to look at him like that? It was him, Tron, who was lying there, torn open, he was the one to be brought back to his prison soon – Sam, at the same time, had everything. Still, Tron looked at the boy as if he was feeling sorry for him. The idea irritated Sam beyond measure.

 

  Sam grabbed Tron’s hair and pulled his head back. His teeth broke the skin on the program’s throat. He felt the resonance of an inaudible whimper and the regretful expression was gone. He was panting. After a few slow thrusts he began to move in earnest again. His hand slid down, under one of the widely spread legs. Tron’s eyes closed; he was still conscious, he just tried to escape. Sam pressed his lips on his throat, on the wound he had left just moments before. He reached his climax with a quiet growl – immediately he felt the exhaustion overwhelming him.

 

  It was dark and quiet when he woke up. For a moment he could not tell where he was; then he saw the city lights which drew fine patterns on the wall and he remembered. He was still very tired; he must have wakened in the middle of the night, even if that term had no meaning in the system. He reached out and his hand touched the sheets – he was alone in the bed. He lifted his head and looked around. Tron was sitting at the window, on the floor, with his back to the room. He had reintegrated his dress and crawled away while Sam had been sleeping. From the bed the boy could not see if he was awake at all; it seemed that the program was watching the city. The boy put his head back on the pillow. The light of a flying aircraft appeared on the ceiling and drew a colorful line there before disappearing. That reminded him of his bedroom back in the days, with all the luminescent toys and with a guardian reading or watching television somewhere close. He felt safe: he fell asleep again quickly.

 

 

V.

 

  The phone rang in the middle of the night: the quiet chirping woke him up immediately.

 

  “They are gone,” he heard Alan’s voice from the phone. His eyes found the fluorescent numbers of the alarm clock in the darkness; it was half past two in the morning. “They closed the investigation. We may continue the research and the distribution of the device.”

 

  Sam let out the breath he had been holding back. Alan Bradley laughed; he sounded tired and relieved.

 

  “They will keep an eye on us, you know,” he added.

 

  “I guess,” Sam replied. He sighed. “Are you still in the office?”

 

  “Yes. I am leaving now.”

 

  “You don’t have to come in tomorrow. Take a day off. I am serious. And thank you.”

 

  Sam stared at the ceiling in the darkness. Marv was moving in hall; the voices must have wakened him up. The boy felt light-headed from the relief, full of energy – he wanted to get up and go to the ENCOM building. Then he did not move: tomorrow he would have a good working day and at the end he would go to the Grid; things would be back to normal.

 

  Everybody was in a good mood during the day; only when people began to leave and the shadows grew long did Sam notice that it was getting late. He knew that Alan had been right: the federal investigation had ended, because it was too late for them to intervene – that did not mean that they would not keep a close look on the company now. Sam did not mind that: he had ideas and plans for the future, but even if the coming new inventions would bring major changes for the world, they would not affect the power relations, not the way the first device had done it.

 

  There were messages on his phone: some of his friends invited him to go out for a drink. After short hesitation he accepted the invitation and he left the office after sunset. They met at a nearby place; it was cool inside despite of the crowd. They were drinking and were having snacks – a relaxing end of a long workday for the most of them. Sam found his attention wandering away: to that other city which was waiting for him. Absentmindedly he walked to the counter to get another beer. He was listening to the loud music while he was waiting. Just after long moments he noticed the young woman that was standing right next to him and was looking at him with a shy smile. She was young and very attractive; there was something unadorned about her, contrary to the women that approached Sam here or at other places.

 

  “Hey,” she said.

 

  “Hi,” Sam replied. Her smile became a bit wider, yet she was still hesitant. Sam got his beer and turned at her. She wore a simple, but obviously expensive dress. She had short, black hair, porcelain skin and piercing, blue eyes. It was not her appearance which gave her away, but her expression, that sheepish and reverent look – similar to what he saw on the face of programs when he was on the Grid.

 

  “Cancer,” he said. She appeared to be confused.

 

  “What?” she asked. Sam lifted his glass for a mock toast.

 

  “It is a disease,” he said. “Cells grow out of control. They form tumors in the body, which keep on spreading through the bloodstream. It invades the healthy organs and tissues and it will not stop on its own. It doesn’t have a purpose, just to spread until there is nothing left and then the patient dies. Unless they catch it on time and they rip it out with a surgery or burn it with chemotherapy, it will not get enough until it infects everything.”

 

  She was staring at him, dumbfounded. Tears welled up in her eyes; she turned and ran out of the bar. Sam took a sip from his glass. It was Flynn, he thought at first, he had sent the ISO. Had they been hoping to convince Sam, that she was indeed a human? Just when he was leaving the place soon after it occurred to him that it must have been the ISO’s own choice, probably unknown for Flynn. It was so program-like, so simple to try to sway him like that. Yes, she looked like a human, but Sam did not forget his first visit to the Grid, that the system would have collapsed years earlier, had the ISOs not been terminated on time. And it was unholy that now this creature was walking around, even though she had never been born – even the idea felt unreal, sickening. It was still this freak, who had spent the last twenty years with Flynn, she had gone home to him now, not Sam. He found it so nauseating that he felt the anger which was always burning inside him, fading. Not because he was about to forgive, but because did not care anymore… he did not want to care anymore.

 

  With large steps he walked to the parking lot, he got on his bike and left.

 

 

VII.

 

  There was something missing, he knew that immediately, when he entered the system. Something – but he could not figure it until he received Jayden’s report at the Palace. It had been long since he had been absent from the Grid and the clean up after the uprising must have taken place already. That was what he had been missing when he arrived: the temporary stillness, the changed mood after the executions. But the general tone of the city was just the same, energized, positive.

 

  “It had been called off,” explained Jayden, when Sam looked up from the report. “There was no announcement, no explanation. They disassembled the scaffolds and left. The traitors were rectified and released.”

 

  He looked at her; if Jayden had her own opinion about the recent events, that did not show on her face. Clu did not have to provide the programs with explanations; but he had pardoned the rebels, even though he was not the forgiving kind.

 

  Sam did not ask him when they met; and Clu did not ask him either about the reason of his long absence. He must have thought, the boy assumed, that Sam was just like his father had been, irresponsible, unorganized – User qualities. Sam was irritated; and they did not even talk yet. A tremendous amount of work had been done while he had stayed in the User world and Sam was looking at the pile of digital reports. Clu was sitting on the other side of the table, farther away; he seemed to be relaxed… happy.

 

  Despite of his frustration Sam found himself talking about the issues which had delayed him. The investigation, ENCOM; Sam even told him about his encounter with the ISO. Clu was amused.

 

  “Well, but you are back now,” he said. He was smiling; but there was more, something not particularly kind behind that expression.

 

  “Yes,” replied Sam. He thought he understood the unspoken hint: he had been away for half a cycle. Had his presence, his existence been vital for the computer, he still belonged to the other world and there was no way to put their universes in sync. “I am here.”

 

  _What happened_ , he was thinking later, _why he changed his mind?_ And why he, Sam, felt so empty now? All was how it supposed to be, he was winning in both two realms – why it felt so distant, so elusive? When he arrived back to the palace he saw a truck unloading: it was full of light statues, laser paintings, data folders which contained music files and other art pieces, furniture and other appliances; some of them were completely unrecognizable for him. Those were gifts for him from the city; he never asked for any and yet the trucks kept on coming. In the beginning he could not care less – so what changed, why did it hit him now? Back then he wanted to send back everything, then Jayden explained him that his reaction would mean to them a lot, to all those artists and craftsmen. It was like a child’s desperate struggle, asking for attention and love – why did it hurt to think about that? Since his first arrival to the Grid, since his first stay, which had buried his old, uncertain self for good, it seemed to be so simple, so obvious: he had been provided with the best from everything, clothes, food, education in all his life – did not he deserve all those gifts too?

 

  Sam went to his quarters, with those questions, that unusual doubt. He found Tron sitting in the corner, with his arms around his knees. When the door opened the program looked up with a terrified expression on his face. Even with his limited comprehension of time he knew that the User had been away for long and that whatever would come now, that would be brutal. Sam walked there with long steps and dragged him on his feet. Did not he deserve the best from everything, he thought, and if so, then did not he deserve to bring the most beautiful in his bed? He threw Tron on the sheets and began to unfasten his belt.

 

 

VIII.

 

  “That was his old car he had in the last couple of years. In the mornings we would wake up and have breakfast together. Then we would get in that car and he would drive us: to drop me off at the school and Gram in the city. Then he would go around; to the park to catch up with friends for a chess party. That was what I thought. Just years later, when both he and Gram were gone, we found the invoices. From private investigators and media monitoring services. He never gave up; he always believed that they would find Dad. This car was standing in the backyard for months after his funeral and they only gave it away when Gram was gone too.”

 

  Sam fell silent. He was looking at the picture: a photo of his grandfather. It hurt: the late realization, the what if, the could have been. He put away the photo and looked at the next one with mild surprise. It was his mother, pictured at the beach house during her last summer. He did not remember digitizing that one. Sam skipped the image and reached for the next one; he felt Tron straining under him as he lifted the photo. He glanced up. The program looked away, for the first time since Sam had begun to show him the photos. The light tension in his body eased already: but it was too late.

 

  “What?” he asked. He looked at the picture: it was him and his father, not long before Flynn’s disappearance. Why did it prompt that reaction from the program? Then Sam knew. “You’ve seen this picture before.”

 

  Tron closed his eyes. He was lying on his back, with his wrists tied to the headboard. Sam was lying next to him, his head resting on the program’s chest. It was difficult at first, to start and talk, about those pictures, those people, those feelings; then it became easier and easier – relieving at last. Until now: he looked at the photo again and imagined his father showing it to Tron. Sam tossed the picture away angrily and turned back to the program. Sam wanted him to see what he had done, how many lives he had destroyed; but there was no understanding in those grey eyes, just curiosity as the program was watching the photos. That reminded Sam of what his father had told him: that he expected somebody, who was not a human, who had no human experiences to understand his frustration. He had not believed Flynn; and now he got his answer for himself. Sam reached there and turned Tron’s face toward himself. The program opened his eyes. Human-looking eyes; but he was not a human and that feature distinguished him from all the other residents of the system. Outcast, Sam thought, even though he could not tell from where that idea had come from.

 

  Sam rolled on top of him. There was a mild shudder of pain as his weight settled against Tron’s lower body. After days of absence Sam had taken him ravenously and so many times that he had actually gotten exhausted in the most delectable way. Tron was tired too; he had passed out earlier and Sam was quite sure that the guards would have to carry him back to the Throne Ship, just as they had used to do before, when the program had not been able to walk on his own. His fingers slid down from the soft hair to Tron’s neck; his thumb pressed down. Just some more, and the grip would be fatal – the program would not suffocate, obviously, but the damage to his code would kill him anyway. As if he figured his intention, Tron looked up at him. He stayed silent, but his expression changed slowly; to challenging, almost ironic. He tilted his head back, further exposing his own throat. Sam did not want to kill him, yet he tried to find the anger, the hate that would make him capable doing it – and he ended up failing. It was chilling, the lack of hatred, the hatred, which had fueled his actions for so long. Then, he thought, what did he expect? He, contrary to this creature, was a human and people did change. Did he really expect to be blinded by hate for the rest of his life? He wanted, he dearly wanted to hang onto that red-hot emotion; but it was gone, it had disappeared during the times, during the cycles. No, it did not disappear; it transformed to sadness, to understanding at last. Sam retracted slowly and sat up on the edge of the bed. He looked around in the room as if he was seeing it for the first time. He leaned ahead and buried his face in his palms.

 

 

IX.

 

  The people around the table were talking and laughing: plates with appetizers were passed around. The large glass doors were open and the cool, evening air was coming in the house unobstructed. The guests, the friends of the Bradleys’ had just taken their seats. It was Friday evening; they could have celebrated the end of the working week, the soaring of the ENCOM stocks – but they had come together, because Jet Bradley came home for a few days.

 

  The guests were chatting: it was so much like a normal evening, a dinner with friends, except for it was not. It reminded Sam of the years when they had pretended that they had been a family. He did receive the usual kind words, handshakes and Lora kissed him on the face when he arrived; still, it was different now. Alan did say a toast to him, but it was professional admiration and not a father’s pride. Jet, who was sitting across the table nodded at him with a smile. Jet, the closest he had had to a sibling; and they had not even been in contact since Jet had earned his PhD.

 

  It was alright, the dinner was rather pleasant until the end of the main course. By then the conversation started again: about work, stocks, kids in various colleges. Sam glanced up: Jet was smiling by himself too. Then Sam noticed the sudden silence and the faces that turned at him.

 

  “What?” he asked, absentmindedly. Alan raised his hand already, but the guest, who had addressed Sam, repeated his question.

 

  “I don’t know,” the boy replied. “I have no idea what Flynn is doing.”

 

  He did not care; or at least that was what he was showing to them. He should have done it; he would think later, he should have made them back up right away. Instead he was listening to the remarks of the guests – and those words were not unfriendly, not really, but they were inconsiderate, patronizing. Most of those present did not notice the tactless tone, the growing tension. Sam was about to make a harsh remark; and then he stayed silent. An image occurred to him, the view of Tron City, as he had seen it right before his last departure, before the portal device had activated. It was bright, quiet in the distance. Sam looked at the guests and saw them with the eyes of an outsider: the expensive suits and costumes and the curious faces. All that talk about stocks, loans and shares; those words would have not made sense in the system. He found himself craving for that simplicity; he found himself wanting to go home.

 

  Out of respect for the hosts he stayed until the dinner ended.

 

  “I am so sorry,” said Lora when he was about to leave. They were standing on the porch. All the others were having drinks inside.

 

  “Don’t be,” he replied, his mind already far away. After saying goodbye Sam walked out to the street, toward his bike. Cars were passing by, leaving at the direction of the city center: the night just started. He stopped next to the Ducati, with his helmet in his hands and looked up at the night sky. And he remembered again, the stillness of the Grid, the sound of the wind down there – the sound of the wind in a realm where there was no air. He remembered: he had been sitting on the edge of the bed, with his face buried in his hands. When he had turned he had found Tron staring at the ceiling with an expression that could be relief or disinterest just the same; as if Sam’s final decision for him, life or death had not really mattered. He had shut down not long after and was unconscious when they came for him; in his tight, silver-white dress he was strangely alien and breakable in the Black Guards’ hands. Sam was standing there, staring at the sky. He wanted to leave, but his legs did not move, he wanted to blink, but his eyes stayed wide shut, burning.


	10. Round One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “who waits forever anyway?”*

I.

 

  The panels lit up one after another. It was the original, white glow of the building; only the pattern was slightly different for the capacity of the stadium had been increased, along with other updates. There was an expectant silence: the crowd that overlooked the final stage of the reconstruction was waiting for the ring of light to be completed.

 

_A new beginning._

 

  The last segment got powered up at last. A loud cheer started and hung above the place, seemingly unending: the new Arena was finished and ready to host the upcoming events as it had done so many times previously. After the new User’s arrival, after the extension of the Grid, the beginning of the new constructions and the installation of the new programs the Games had been suspended. Now it was time to reinstate the tradition.

 

_A tradition – but also the beginning of something new._

  He turned. The surrounding programs – guards, administrators – parted and gave way to him. Clu walked through them silently, his face hidden behind his dark helmet; they could not guess whether he was satisfied with what they had seen, with the progress of the construction. And was he, asked himself Clu as he was walking toward his ship, was he satisfied?

 

  “Sire,” a lower ranked System Utility rushed there to him with a report. If something, that short interlude indicated the changes that had taken place: before that such attempt would have been rewarded with a dismissive gesture from the system administrator, or even with the sudden, but very painful interruption of the guards. This time Clu nodded shortly; a member of his entourage took the report from the System Utility. The latter one stepped back quickly; probably even he was surprised that his daring action had been successful.

 

_Satisfied? Yes. Happy._

  The ship started and lifted up slowly. The new Arena appeared to be even mightier from the distance: around the building the district was busy and lively. The opening ceremony was going to take place just a few microcycles later – and the games were going to be the highlights of the coming terms; even if with some changes, compared to the previous thousand cycles.

 

  Happiness – he disliked that word. It reminded him of Flynn, and his ways – it was associated with corruption. But then, Flynn was history now and even though programs did not forget, they were capable of moving on. Weren’t they, Clu thought, wasn’t he?

 

_Yes. Happy._

 

 

II.

 

  The room was dim and quiet; there was no evidence of the intense energy transfer which had taken place there not long before; the cries and whispers of pleasure had gone silent already. Clu was lying on his side, propped on his elbow. He was relaxed and sated; his circuitry was still pulsing with a darker hue. Tron was lying on his back next to him: his head was resting on Clu’s stomach as he was lying across the bed. Most of his attire was missing: the intricate pattern of his circuits had returned to their light blue glow by then. His eyes were closed and he was quiet: conversation was not part of their deal. Clu was playing with the program’s hair absentmindedly. This silence was different now. Clu did not know and was not particularly interested to find out how it felt to be taken by force; but he had seen Tron getting injured and taking it without a word, back in the cycles – the way the program was screaming in his arms later gave him an idea about the nature of that experience. But it was easier for Tron to lock himself up after that, when he was half-unconscious from the suffering anyway. Now – since their agreement after the rebellion – Tron seemed to be rather confused. There was no escape for him anymore when they were together; he was lying there with straining body, with burning, violet circuits and he could not resist, argue or fight, not upon their agreement. His eyes went dim and he turned his face away, away from the bright light of their connected circuits, away from Clu. The system administrator felt offended; then he eased. He was going to get that too; sooner or later. Tron was going to get back Rinzler’s red circuits; he had just chosen the slower, harder way for that. He chose to believe in Users, he chose to wait for them; for Flynn and for that other one, his original programmer. But they had not come; instead of them Sam Flynn arrived. Tron never talked about the young User, never asked Clu to protect him from Sam – as if he knew that it was not going to happen, not until he gave up believing in Users.

 

  “How long before we take our destiny in our own hands?” Clu remembered his own words from long before. “Flynn wants this world to be everything it can be. I, obviously, want the same thing. We can live up to his dreams, but we can’t just wait forever.”

 

  That memory was old, distracting. Once he had been created to Flynn’s own image; and Clu remembered what Sam had told him, that Flynn had been nothing of his old self by the time he had stepped ahead.

 

  “I can’t be here to guide you for everything” the Creator had told him once. “I have too much to do in the real world.”

 

  “The ‘real world’ you talk about,” Clu had replied, “it might as well be your Olympus. This world to me, to all of us… This is the real world.”

 

  “What are you asking, Clu? You want to see Olympus?”

 

  “No. I’m asking for the tools to make this world into a home fit for gods.”

 

  Tron opened his eyes and looked at Clu. He had pronounced the last words of the memory sequence aloud and that made the program stir. Tron must have remembered that conversation as well. Clu’s paddling fingers stopped. Tron had a barely noticeable squint in his eyes; the only imperfection that Flynn had not corrected when he had reworked the program’s code. He had probably liked it.

 

  “He did not believe in me,” said Clu. On the other hand, he had not fixed that irregularity either; he liked it too. Tron did not reply. “You did not believe in me.”

 

  “I believed in you,” said Tron. It was not an apology or a flattery, just a simple statement: but it was enough to stop Clu, to make him savor the moment.

 

  “Did you like me?” he asked. Tron closed his eyes. Clu was waiting.

 

  “I did like you,” replied Tron in a neutral voice. A home fit for gods, Clu reminded himself.

 

  “Like,” he said. “Never love.”

 

  “Never love,” repeated Tron. His neck strained as Clu’s hand went into a fist in his hair and he prepared for the punishment for his words. Clu leaned ahead instead and kissed him on the lips. The lights of the room faded.

 

  Darkness. Sleep.

 

 

III.

 

  The data pad was glowing with a pale light as the information was projected. It was Jarvis’ last report; he had returned from the Palace not long before. As usual, it was mostly about the schedule of life at the User’s residence, about the number and function of programs that worked there – but there was something new too.

 

  Shortly before they started to leave, Jarvis saw the warden in the main hall. She was instructing a few workers where to unload their carriage. Jarvis had attached the media file from his own memories to the report. Clu had not seen Jayden since the uprising: she did not leave the Palace between normal circumstances. In the video, the cart tipped and the shipment began to fall. The workers jumped back with a startled yelp. Jayden, who was standing a few steps away, rushed there and caught the edge of the cart. The action revealed her unparalleled speed and strength: a few pieces of the load fell to the ground and broke, but the rest remained in place. Jayden straightened herself and gestured at the programs to keep on moving. Just when she thought she was alone did she look at her right arm: the sharp edge of the cart had sliced through her sleeve and had wounded her. The cut on her attire revealed the light blue circuits on the program’s arm. Jayden wrapped her coat around herself and took a quick look around. In the memory Jarvis flattened himself against the large column from behind he was lurking. The warden turned and hurried her way out of the hall.

 

  Clu closed the report. The lack of visible circuitry of the new citizens had been intriguing enough for him to summon dozens of them earlier to examine them – the system administrator knew about their nature. They were all the same, with those pale blue energy lines: User-believers, programs that required the constant User input. It was not surprising, not really, considering that they had been just created by Sam Flynn. He could still understand the warden’s fright and also told him once thing: that Sam did not know that detail about his programs. Sam, whose fake red circuitry only indicated his decision – perhaps he would not even say anything, had he learnt that information about his right hand. Red or blue, it did not mean evil or good, not the way the rebels liked to explain it throughout the cycles – it just meant programs’ capability to make own decisions, to evolve on their own. Still, it was valuable information and it earned Jarvis a compliment.

 

  Down in the city the preparations for the opening ceremony kept everybody busy and excited. Since the capacity of the building was so much larger now, there would be more programs working there and the training of the new staff members had been in progress since cycles. Maintenance, security, entertainment – with smaller or bigger changes the routine had been the same since the beginning. In the old era it was what it was: games, play: a source of ideas for Flynn and a place for Tron to show up. No wonder that the security program was so sensitive when the first new rules had been implemented.

 

  “We need to talk,” said Tron, as he was walking in the office tower, “Now!”

 

  Clu turned. Around him the guards were watching his reaction: by then they knew that the User and his followers would not protect the Grid from the ISO disease that was consuming the resources – they would have attacked Tron right away, had Clu given a sign.

 

  “Tron, what an unexpected pleasure to have you visiting me,” said Clu, his voice full of sarcasm. “What with all the turmoil on the streets and the vigorousness of the games.”

 

  “That’s what I’m here about,” replied Tron, pretending that he did not notice the vitriolic tone. “Your guards were derezzing losing programs after their matches. Did you order them to?”

 

 “Yes, I did. Do you want me to alter our new policy? I’d be _happy_ to discuss it with you.”

 

  Tron looked at him silently.

 

  “The Grid is changing,” said Clu. “And we must be the shepards of that change. We’re staring into chaos, and we need order. Sometimes, that means force. Like Flynn says, we have to be flexible in the face of imperfection. If our system of dealing with losing programs in the games isn’t perfect, we must change it.”

 

  He smiled. He meant what he told, but there was more too: the issue was not _that_ important – probably he just pushed it, because it was about the Games, because he knew that it would make Tron snap.

 

  “We must be willing to do what it takes to keep our world safe, Tron.”

 

  “The Games aren’t about force, Clu. This is wrong.”

 

  Tron turned already: so sure about being right, so sure that he would have the last word, that he would be allowed to simply walk out. And he was to, for now.

 

  When the time came, Clu did make those changes – those, and one more he had not been really planning. That happened after the Purge, when they were putting down the foundations of the new world. The Creator had fled, abandoning his followers and there was an expectant, terrified silence in the city. They were about to learn that they had no reason to be afraid: only the enemies of the system were to expire.

 

  It had been a while since the last armed conflict when the Sirens were summoned to the office tower. And they came, despite of their fear: what was the point to run? The ISOs ran before them, most of them were very strong and none of them made it. These creatures were unarmed and weak; worthlessness was plastered on them. But they were Flynn’s programs and they were harmless – for that Clu had spared them; until then.

 

  The doors closed when they entered the building; a hundred and twenty-seven. That was how many of them Flynn had created: and for Sirens were the masters of survival, they were all here; female programs all of them in the same white-silver dress. A hundred and twenty-seven: a disturbing number, disturbing for programs that cared about regular values – one was always missing to make it square.

 

  They stopped in the empty auditorium: it had been emptied before to make place and make this event simpler. As the doors closed and got sealed, the guards stepped ahead, their staffs lit up. Some of them brought out their discs already. The Sirens were turning around gracelessly on their laughable high heels; some of them dropped their umbrellas as they realized that none of them would leave the place alive. Dismay showed on their usually blank face.

 

  Clu was watching the scene from the top of the stairs. It was going to end, now. He was not sure, why it was so urgent – many things of great importance were pending, in progress yet. They were looking for Flynn, were fighting with his numerous followers for many of the terrorist groups were still active out there. Tron was imprisoned and was waiting for Clu’s decision without being aware of it; the system administrator had not waken him up after their duel during the coup.

 

  The guards were waiting for him: a single nod and scattered pixels would cover the floor of the auditorium. Suddenly one of the Sirens parted from the terrified group and began to walk at Clu. It was Gem, the first one. The soldiers on Clu’s side were looking at him, but the system administrator was quiet and motionless. As the Siren was making her way upstairs the quickest she just could, with her cold eyes on Clu, he remembered the tale of the man who had fallen into the sea and the mermaid who had saved his life and helped him back to his own realm. That was the reason: he did not want to see these women, the living memento of that story, of Flynn’s wretched feelings toward a program.

 

  Gem stopped just a few feet away from him. She was talking quickly and humbly, without looking straight in his eyes; claiming that they had never been unfaithful to the system, promising that they would work, they would do their best according to their capabilities – that they would never fail the Grid or Clu. He should have brought Tron, Clu was thinking, he should have made him watch them dying. He found that idea somewhat calming.

 

  “Fine,” he said at the end. Gem was stunned, as if she had not really believed that Clu would be merciful. But they kept their word: they worked and became the informers of the administration; many of the resistance fighters met their fate because of their deception. Yet Clu was full of resentment against them; he sent the Sirens to the Arena, to work there, to escort the condemned to their death and make them remember how close they had come.

 

 

IV.

 

  The city was slowly left behind: he saw less and less light as the jet was approaching the Outlands. He passed the last outer district and the farthest check point; it was very quiet now. There was only the sound of the one-man light jet and the constant whisper of the wind. The dark slate of the Outlands sparkled here and there, otherwise it was deserted. Once Flynn’s home, now it would be abandoned for good: it was not a habitable area for programs.

 

  He was flying alone. The last aircrafts of the system had been left behind long before; it was only him, the jet and the empty sky. It was almost clear and it was not raining. Down on the slopes there could be secret passages and caves; forgotten hideouts which would stay empty now.

 

  Clu turned the jet around and headed back to the city. Lights, energy, life – that was it. Programs were working on a construction site in an outer district; soon there would be a factory and wide streets would be running between the buildings.

 

  “Circuits like freeways,” he whispered to himself. A bike was speeding on the empty ground. It could have been anyone, but Clu recognized it right away: it was Sam Flynn. The User had arrived earlier and had been working at the Arcade without calling anybody or stepping out. Clu took off out of curiosity when Sam finally left. Now the jet was flying above the bike. Sam did not seem to mind it; he did not change his speed or route. At the end the jet sped up and started toward the city center.

 

  Sam was nervous and restless when he came back. There was nothing in the system which was out of order, unscheduled; Clu knew that the reason of his uneasiness was in the User world.

 

  “They are…” started Sam. He appeared to be thinking, considering; as if he was afraid that revealing his concerns might paint him as weak. “Flynn started a new company. They make medicine. I don’t know if it would work… maybe.”

 

  He fell silent. Clu leaned back in his chair.

 

  “And you are afraid that he might succeed,” he said.

 

  “Yes,” replied Sam slowly. He looked at Clu as if he was waiting for the system administrator to explain something that he could not really understand.

 

  “Would his success or failure change anything?” asked Clu. Sam shook his head. “You want him keep on failing. So you would be assured that you are right.”

 

  “Probably,” said Sam. “Also, I am pretty sure that it is the ISO behind their experiments.”

 

  Clu laughed.

 

  “So if they do good, that would mean that the ISOs should have been left alive?” he asked and laughed again. “Fine. This system would have crashed hundreds of cycles ago, had the ISOs not been erased. They have any use of one out there? Good for them. About Flynn…”

 

  He was thinking and Sam looked at him intently.

 

  “He created this place,” he said at the end. “And nothing will change that. But we would be all dead, had it depended on him, and he would be dead too. Nothing will change that either. And if he would do nothing or would only fail from now on, then he could be simply dead, couldn’t he?”

  “That’s right,” replied Sam. He appeared somewhat relieved, but there was still something. “Why did he fail?”

 

  “He tried to interpret the rules of his own world and enforce them here. He expected us to respond to his orders and requests the way Users would have responded. He mistook programs’ intelligence to Users’ consciousness. He wanted a program that was supposed to keep his computer safe to be his partner in life and understand him as if he was another User.”

 

  Sam turned pale suddenly; that reaction confirmed Clu’s assumption. The young User was falling into the same disease which had taken his father down.

 

  “There is a very simple solution though,” he added.

 

  “What is that?” asked Sam in a hoarse voice.

 

  “Don’t ask for Tron anymore.”

 

  Sam snarled at him; and Clu knew that expression from his User memories – that was the young Sam Flynn’s reaction when they had tried to take his toy away. Clu nodded. Let the User drink more of the poison then. They did not talk more and Sam stormed out of the room soon after.

 

 

V.

 

  The crowd filled the streets before the ceremony. There was a laser show and music; programs were gathering around the Arena since long and by now the surrounding boulevards were packed, full of arriving vehicles. When the gates opened they began to stream inside in an orderly manner.

 

  Contrary to that, the surroundings of the hangar were mostly empty; but the military basis was heavily guarded and had limited accessibility anyway. The docked Throne Ship stood there dark and mighty.

 

  In the quiet room Clu brought out the white identity disc from a hidden drawer. It turned on in his hands. He went to the bed: Tron was lying on his side, fast asleep. Sometimes his sleep was unrestful and he was tossing and turning. Clu was quite sure that he was dreaming at those times. Now the program was lying there the way Clu had left him.

 

  The disc clicked to place and the glow of Tron’s circuitry strengthened. Clu sat down on the edge of the bed and watched him wakening. Tron was stirring and opened his eyes slowly. The first glance was always the same: to see which one was coming, Clu or a trip to the Palace. He put his head back on the pillow. Clu reached there and smoothed Tron’s hair from his face.

 

  “There is a celebration out there,” he said. “The opening of the new Arena.”

 

  Tron looked up at him suspiciously, as he was wondering why Clu was telling that to him. The system administrator stood up.

 

  “Come,” he said. Tron was staring at him, confused. Then he understood the call and he jumped on his feet. Clu reached out at him; he could not suppress a smile when Tron turned away, slightly evading, pretending that he did not know that Clu wanted his disc. That disc - the program did not have much use of it, but it was still his. With his disc left behind he could not attempt to run when outside, for the disc was tracking his actions. At least Clu was assured that nothing really changed, that the sparkle was still there. Tron did not stir as Clu took the disc and put it away. The door unlocked and opened. Clu heard the quiet steps as the program was following him; then Tron stopped. The system administrator turned around. Tron was standing at the door. His head bowed; he looked at his own hands, his own attire. Clu understood it: as much as the program wished to get out this room, he did not want to walk around in that suit.

 

  Clu took the program’s wrist and began to drag him along the dark corridor. Tron did not resist; his longing for seeing the city was stronger than the shame. The new, smaller command ship was waiting nearby, under the open roof. The short ramp closed once they were on board; the crew of the aircraft prepared for departure immediately. Clu let go of Tron; the program stood there for a moment in the crossfire of looks. Clu sat down next to a large window, his face now covered by the dark visor of his helmet. For the aircraft being much smaller than the Throne Ship was, the only way for Tron to avoid bumping into the crewmembers was to sit down next to Clu. He turned at the window, apparently trying to ignore the rest of the programs and the curious looks. Clu put an arm around Tron’s waist. The program tensed and then relaxed quickly; his eager eyes were on the city view.

 

  The ship landed on a platform, above the large front gate, where programs were streaming inside. Upon the arrival of the commander ship a loud cheer came from down under. There were many sentries standing around the platform and a few members of the staff, waiting for Clu and his entourage. They walked down the ramp, the guards first and the passengers, following them. Clu stopped; next to him Tron was turning his head – he had not seen this place since his reversion and the upgrade had changed many features of the area. Then his grip tightened around Tron’s waist and they started toward the entrance. There was loud music and chatter inside. The noise of the crowd downstairs did not get here; the higher ranked guests were making their way to their seats through the parlor. The programs went quiet when the Black Guards entered; then applause started and many of the guests made a deep bow to the system administrator. Clu was standing there in silence, his face still hidden behind the helmet. Tron was quiet next to him: with Clu’s arm around his waist he could not move, he was just staring at the floor with burning face. This, Clu thought, this was the victory he had been fighting for throughout the centuries.

 

  Castor, the master of ceremonies for the opening night stepped ahead with a wide smile. Chosen from many hopeful aspirants, the pale program was in his element now. His glowing smile only faded for a moment, when he straightened himself after bowing deep for Clu and he looked at the system administrator. No, not at Clu – at Tron, who was now glaring at Castor disdainfully. Castor coughed perplexedly; then the moment of interruption was gone. Plates were carried around and the guests raised their glasses to Clu.

 

  He noticed somebody in the crowd of System Utilities that had been in charge for the reconstruction of the Arena. Clu gestured at the program with his free hand and Shaddox walked there, smiling. Tron flinched and let out a horrified groan. Clu’s grip tightened to prevent him from running away. Shaddox smiled and greeted them courteously. Tron was shaking; he buried his face in Clu’s collar.

 

  “Why don’t you look at him?” asked the system administrator quietly. “You paid for his life.”

 

  Tron strained in his arm again; he understood it now. The crowd around them did not notice the interlude; they were chatting and laughing.

 

  “Look at him,” said Clu. “Don’t you want him to say a thank you?”

 

  “No,” whispered Tron. “Send him away. Please…”

 

  After one more long moment Clu dismissed the System Utility and began to proceed toward the elevator. The crowd parted for them and doors of the private elevator opened on the other side of the parlor. Clu walked in with Tron; two of the guards also joined them before the door closed and the large elevator cabin began to ascend. The short ride ended in a luxury box: one wall of the room was a single window, overlooking the stadium. There were a few couches inside and a smaller table. The place could have hosted many; but they were alone, except for the two guards that also exited the elevator and stood straight on the two sides of the door. Clu released Tron at last: the system administrator walked to the couch in the middle and sat down. Tron went to the window in a hurry; his face was hidden, but he was obviously shaken. He was standing right next to the wall, which was transparent from the inside, yet opaque from outside – only a bright, golden light above the box let the crowd know that the suite was occupied.

 

  Shortly after the light show, which was entertaining the arriving programs, stopped. A red and a white figure appeared in the middle of the Arena – Jarvis and Castor. First Jarvis started to talk and then Castor finished the speech: they welcomed the guests and shortly talked about the new era which had started with Sam Flynn’s arrival. Clu saw Tron freezing at those words: the program must have realized that the event was too important for Sam to miss – he could have assumed that the User would attend the ceremony too, and he, Tron might end up in the middle of a very different celebration. Indeed, Sam was invited, but he did not come, as if he wanted to prove that he was not interested about these matters, that he did not care. Probably, thought Clu, he managed to fool others, even himself. Probably.

 

  The two programs down there disappeared and the clamor of applause filled the large space. Another sound joined the cacophony: the roar of light cycles. The vehicles entered the Arena through side doors and put up their light walls right after. There were a dozen of bikes with various colors and their energy walls had the same intriguing shades. The crowd went quiet: they sensed that this chase was something new, different. The bikes were not trying to collide, to cut each other’s way or send the others against the deadly walls; instead they were making circles, turns and leaps. Just after some time the guests figured the game: the light walls, which were filling the floor slowly made up an intricate pattern. Though a game was dangerous – the place was getting smaller and smaller as the bikes were speeding along and the pilots had to be more and more careful to avoid the collision – there were no casualties. Just before the space would have run out, a gong sounded and the light walls disappeared. The game ended; cheering and applause filled the stadium again.

 

  The door of the suite opened and Tron turned around nervously. A maid entered, carrying a plate with a jug and glasses. No, not a maid; it was a Siren. She walked to the small table and put down the plate. When she unbent she glanced at Tron. Clu looked up at her. There was the usual phlegmatic expression of her kind on the Siren’s face, but something else too; the blush of indignation. Clu was wondering what induced that anger; the fact that she was entrusted with such a low task for the night or because she saw Tron. Maybe both – and that was exactly what Clu wanted. He dismissed the Siren and the guards as well; the door closed and the now he was alone in the suite with Tron.

 

  The program turned back to the window. He had taken quite a few hits by now, but he was still holding on. Clu disintegrated his helmet and leaned back in his comfortable seat. Down on the stage a play took place now. Programs were dancing and were running around in circles, eight of them at once, in sixteen circles: the symbol of a working system with round numbers. Music was playing in the Arena, for the play itself was silent. Suddenly a shining figure appeared above and descended slowly. The dancing programs stopped, stared at the mighty creature and they all fell on their knees. The figure reached the ground and his light faded somewhat – it was a program, that played the role, but the clothing and the circuitry was of Kevin Flynn’s. The crowd booed. Tron pressed his hands against the window and leant very close to it. On the stage the programs were now dancing around the User, who was conducting the rhythm. The light was stronger now and the programs multiplied: the system was thriving and evolving. At one point the program, that was impersonating the User, stopped and there was a sudden flash. In the next moment there were two of him: with the same look and strength. The audience burst out in applause.

 

  The theme changed, when new characters showed up suddenly through the trapdoors of the stage. They were enormous and monster-like: even the floor turned dark where they were threading. They joined the dance, but their heavy bodies would not fit into the circles: they pushed over the programs and trampled them down. The crowd was dead silent now; just the cries of outrage came from here and there. More and more monsters emerged, and more and more programs were crushed – some of them fell into the trapdoors from where the monsters had crawled out. The people, the User’s counterpart amongst them, ran to Flynn and raised their pleading hands at him. The User turned his back to them and went on dancing with the monsters. The programs jumped on their feet and attacked the terrible creatures. It was a hard battle, but the people of the Grid vanquished: the monsters fell down and the User ran away, disappeared in the shadows. The survivors embraced each other and returned to their dance. The audience was cheering: the happy clamor continued when another shining creature appeared above and descended to the ground. The play ended.

 

  Tron’s hands fell down and he was standing there with bowed head. Slowly he looked back at Clu above his shoulder. His expression was hurt and weary. Clu did not say anything: had not he talked? Had not he tried to make his point before? There was no use of speaking anymore. Tron turned back at the Arena once more.

 

  And then the main attraction of the night, the disc battles, began. The round was between two single warriors, eye to eye. A transparent cube manifested around them and it lifted up from the ground, to make the show visible for everyone in the stadium. The cheering would not stop in the Arena: until the cube was forming and moving, the two combatants were warming up with spins and other tricks. Then the fight started, and the sound of the flying discs filled the space. Jumps, leaps and twists – the two fighters had been chosen for their strength and abilities to make this event a real spectacle and they did not disappoint. Clu looked at Tron. The program was watching the fight silently; he was motionless, only his fingers jerked sometimes, barely noticeable. He would have not lasted for a moment in the Arena, not with his new, limited capabilities, but the fire, the wish was there. The battle went on for long and it was impossible to guess, which one of the contenders would prevail, not until the very end. One disc hit the transparent wall of the cube and sprang back; now aimed at one of the fighters, it flew. It cut through the raised arm of the warrior: pixels fell on the ground. The wounded program cried out and dropped his disc, which rolled away and fell out from the cube through one of the holes of the floor.

 

  The crowd went silent. The winning combatant caught his returning disc and slowly walked ahead. The other one was on his knees, cradling his wounded arm. The cube began to descend, so that the winner could exit and meet the cheer of the crowd right away. Tron looked away. The warrior got to the defeated program and he raised his disc – and he returned it to the port on his own back. He reached out and helped the other on his feet; then they both bowed at the crowd. Wild applause filled the Arena once more. When the cube landed and disappeared there was a small group of programs waiting for the winner with a bowl. The other participant got his disc back and he walked out from the spotlight with a sour face.

 

  Tron turned around and looked at Clu quietly.

 

  “The rules have changed,” said Clu. Tron was staring at him, still silent. “Do you like it?”

 

  Tron looked down again at the Arena. A light show started again. There was an apparent struggle, an inner fight as if the program was trying to convince himself about something. He turned slowly and walked to the couch. His expression was uncertain, even fearful – he was not afraid of Clu, the system administrator realized, but of his own decision. Clu wanted to reach there, to grab him already; then he did not move. There was only one way for this scene to end anyway.

 

  The program leaned ahead; the movement was slow, still reluctant, different from his usual gracefulness. His face was in line with Clu’s now, but he was looking aside, evading. Clu reached there and put his hand on the back of Tron’s head. He yanked at his hair lightly.

 

  “Look at me,” he said. Tron complied and his eyes darkened immediately. It had not been like that, Clu remembered, back in the old times; Tron had never seemed to be disturbed by the system administrator’s appearance, by his similarity to Flynn. Just in the intimate moments it surfaced – even if that was forced intimacy –, and Clu could not help but wondered if they were the same for Tron, Flynn and him, if they looked the same in the moments of ecstasy.

 

  With a sudden tug he pulled Tron in his lap. The program settled quickly and without any resistance. Clu knew that this obedience, this willingness was not genuine, but his eager hands were all over that slim body already. What difference did it make? They could have been like this, from the very beginning, in a perfect world. In a perfect system no program would have thrown away reason for the deception of a User, would have not betrayed his own kind for lies, the way Tron had done once.

 

  Tron lifted himself and straddled Clu. His hands came to rest on the system administrator’s shoulders; he leaned ahead and kissed Clu on the lips. Clu sat there motionlessly, only his fingers sank deep into the tight, white material on Tron’s thighs. Time could have stopped then and there; he felt done, accomplished. He put one hand on Tron’s nape and pulled him closer, kissing him carefully. His fingers slid down and the Siren suit disappeared where it traced down on Tron’s chest; Clu’s lips touched the exposed circuits. His gloved hand reached out for the jug on the plate – then he lifted his head from Tron’s neck and spilled the drink over the program’s naked chest. Tron cried out; his circuitry sparkled wildly upon the contact. He snarled at Clu; the liquid energy could not hurt, but it must have been an intense feeling. The system administrator laughed and began to lick the dripping liquid from Tron’s skin. The pale blue light of those energy lines turned dark quickly and Clu felt Tron’s hands trembling on his shoulder.

 

  The black gloves dissolved and Clu grabbed Tron’s waist. The program saw what was coming and there was a moment of hesitation before he relaxed in Clu’s grip. The golden light appeared immediately: Clu looked up and saw the reflection of that glow in Tron’s eyes before the program’s head fell back. Clu was sitting there with strained body and burning circuits, with his hands caressing Tron’s sides slowly. He was silent; the noises from the outside were muted now and the room was filled by Tron’s quiet whimpers. From the memory sequences on Tron’s disc Clu knew how vocal the program had once been with Flynn – he wanted the same for himself. His lips slid along the pattern of circuitry on Tron’s skin and the program cried out. Clu lifted his gaze; he wished to see the pleasure on Tron’s face – yet he frowned at the sight. The energy lines under his hands were deep blue and Tron’s expression was of pure enjoyment; but tears were streaming down on his face, from under his closed eyelids.

 

  He came with a low grunt. Tron went slack in his arms and the program leant his forehead against the armor on Clu’s shoulder. Clu was looking at the Arena; he felt content and robbed at the same time. He wanted to do something; but what? His hands were heavy on Tron’s waist and hips; the program was shaking lightly from the fear in his arms. He was kissing Clu’s face carefully as if he was trying to convince the programmer, that he would be good, he did not need to be hurt anymore.

 

  A path of light opened down in the Arena and a small group began to walk upstairs. It was the winner of the championship and a few others from the celebrators. The loud acclamation of the crowd accompanied their short walk up to the luxury suite. Clu released Tron; the program arranged his own dress and sat down onto a couch in a corner, without daring to look at the system administrator. Clu stood up and walked to the transparent wall of the box, his suit and helmet intact.

 

  The guards stepped inside with the champion after them: the rest of the company was waiting outside with the guards. The winning combatant was carrying his shiny bowl; there was a string of light around his neck that someone from the crowd must have given him. He was a tall and very strong-looking program with neutral white circuits. He had an old, smaller pixelated scar on his face; that kind of wound was simple to heal and yet he was wearing it proudly. He was smiling as he bowed reverently and received his compliment from Clu. He was about to leave, when he noticed Tron, who was sitting motionlessly on the couch in the corner. Tron was quiet, but he was glaring at the champion intently – or at the bowl in the warrior’s hands. How many times, thought Clu, he had held the bowl of the champion, down in the Arena. If Tron had entered the Games, it had been considered as a done deal, and yet contenders had come again and again, just to be defeated one by one. Now this, this was the closest Tron would ever get to that bowl ever again; and the program was staring at the new champion irately. He looked fragile and beautiful; ethereal, compared to the winner. The champion looked away, embarrassed and backed out from the luxury suite. The guards followed and down in the Arena the crowd began to leave slowly. Tron stood up as well. The door closed and locked once more. Clu turned, he put his hand on Tron’s chest and pushed him over. Tron lost his balance and fell on his back on the couch. Clu was on him right away; he grabbed Tron’s hair and pulled his head back.

 

  “You can do better than that,” he whispered in the program’s ear. Tron nodded quickly and wrapped his legs around Clu’s hips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VI.

 

  The data pads piled up on the desk and there was a long line of System Utilities waiting for approval, so they could return to the field. They all worked hard on the next phase of the constructions. It was hard; but it was orderly and needed – it was part of building and maintaining a perfect system. He was not nervous, rushed or annoyed anymore.

 

  “I know you’re frustrated, Clu,” Tron had told him once, back in the cycles, when things had not been that straightforward than now. “But it makes sense. He is the Creator. He is of two worlds. The worlds of Users, and the world he made. We must forgive him for needing to be in both places.”

 

  Clu did not look at him. He was torn and between doubts; and those words did not help at all. The constant praise of Flynn, excuses on his side, never considering that Clu could be right; that was Tron. He was angry and suspicious, but he could not get assurance, because the security program avoided giving Clu his disc even for a quick scan.

 

  “My concern is this world,” Clu said. “Our world. Our survival must be our primary goal.”

 

  “You think you know better than him?”

 

  “He made me in his image. For all intents and purposes,” replied Clu. He knew that the program would not understand, not the way he should have understood. “I am the Creator. And together we can keep this world a perfect system.”

 

  Time. Betrayal. War. A thousand cycles and here they were again, amongst the usual tasks and duties. Designs, numbers and ideas, waiting to be surveyed and approved or eliminated – programs in line to get a moment of attention and a nod from Clu. And while checking, considering and talking to the technicians, he found himself wondering; about the time when he had been first introduced to the system, to the people of the Grid, about the wonder and hopes – and about the way Tron had always looked at him when he had returned from a patrol and walked in the office, when he had been weary from the work, but delighted from the adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Queen: Who Wants to Live Forever


	11. Sleeping In Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alan must have felt similarly as he was introduced to the facility and the associates. He was quiet and amused; he looked at Flynn often, as he was trying to figure how he had come up with this idea, with the idea of a pharmaceutical company. 
> 
> “And what will be your first product?” asked Alan when they sat down in the small cafeteria. Flynn felt the urge of his old, wicked self: that one would have answered without hesitation: 
> 
> “We have the cure for cancer.”
> 
> And then he would look at Alan as his old friend would stare at him with disbelief and then would go pale, understanding that Flynn was serious and would be happy that he was sitting already. But they were two aged, wise men now, so he was going slower.

I.

 

  She saw the light even from behind her shut eyelids; she felt the warmth of the sun on her face. Her head was resting against his shoulder; the texture of his jacket was soft on her face… organic. And there were the sounds: the wind between the trees, the birds, happy cries of children from farther away and the distant roar of traffic from the direction of the street. Also smells; grass, cotton candy – and his after shave.

 

  “Don’t ever try to trick anybody,” the words resurfaced in her mind, but Quorra pushed them back. She did not want those thoughts. The warm sunlight made her sleepy, lazy; she dozed off slowly. It was still new for her, dreaming, these vivid images, the mixture of memories and fantasy. Her long life on the Grid was fading into memories: centuries of existence was becoming a dream – or a nightmare? Back in the system things were simple; life, danger, war, death – it was her new consciousness which feared those memories.

 

  In the dream she was walking downhill, cautiously on the steep slope. The lights of the city were behind her and the white blaze of the ISO colony was yet to reach. It was raining and the drops disappeared upon hitting the dark surface; the information bits were assimilated, for sky and earth, up and down, positive and negative were one in the system. There were tents in the valley and low huts; nothing of the late mightiness of Arjia City. She walked through the post which was to look for the possible threat: in the dream nobody stopped her, nobody asked her about her intentions. There was a smaller, expectant crowd around one of the tents and Quorra went there. Somebody was screaming inside, yet nobody from the crowd would enter the tent to help. She got in and stopped. Two ISOs were kneeling next to a female Arjian, who was lying on her back. The painful wailing came from her; her hands were pushing against her large belly bump. Quorra was standing there, terrified: even in the dream she knew that something was wrong, unnatural – these kinds of things had not happened in the system. But the dream proceeded; the screams became louder and the two other ISOs leant forward. Quorra was waiting, her hands pressed against her lips. Then the howling stopped and another sound replaced it: the crying of a newborn. The crowd around the tent burst out in relieved laughter. One of the ISOs inside turned and lifted something: it was a crying infant, with distinguishing white circuitry and a male ISO symbol on his tiny arm. And Quorra screamed.

 

  She woke up with a twitch. His arm tightened around her just enough to make her feel stable, safe. Quorra blinked; how could have Flynn been so biased against Junior, how could have he been so wrong? They never met: while Quorra was free to go wherever she wanted and meet whoever she liked, she could not bring Junior home, to the residence she shared with Flynn.

 

  “You judge him upon what his father did,” she told Flynn one day. They were home, in the large living room.

 

  “Yes,” Flynn replied briefly. She was stunned by the fact that he did not even try to deny it. Seeing her reaction he explained:

 

  “His intentions might be honest, I admit. But I have no way of telling if they are and I can’t take the risk. You don’t need my approval to do as you wish, anyway.”

 

  But it was not enough for Quorra; she was offended.

 

  “Because his intentions might be wrong? Because it is impossible to love me just for myself?” she asked. Flynn looked at her and Quorra knew that look: it was not without love, but it was full of self-consciousness, which let her know that he was making his decisions upon experiences she had no idea about.

 

  “One couldn’t make bigger mistake than not to love you for yourself,” he said. “But there are no coincidences, not in this world. Do you think that out from anybody, he just bumped into you?”

 

  “He did not,” she replied. “I arranged that way. I wanted it to happen.”

 

  Flynn was looking at her: now it was his turn to be surprised. Then he nodded and turned at the large window of the balcony.

 

  “You are not saying anything?” she asked.

 

  “Don’t ever try to trick anybody,” he said after not long. “You will be fooled twice by them before even realizing it.”

 

  Quorra stood there in silence; she wanted to argue, to fight – but he was right. Did not she have her own agenda? Did not she want to take action, when he refused to do so? But then, she fell in love and so did Junior; they were not fooling anybody. She opened her eyes and looked up. Junior was sitting on the bench, leant to the backrest, with his book in his hand. He looked down at her and smiled. Was it only him, Quorra was thinking, or the fact that nobody had touched her since the longest time? She did not even remember how it felt to share a warm embrace, to be watched by loving eyes.

 

  “A bad dream?” he asked.

 

  “Yes,” she replied. Her voice was raspy. Junior put down his book, turned to her and kissed her forehead.

 

  “A bad dream,” she whispered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

II.

 

  They walked along the white corridor. There was not much to see: white doors on both sides with laboratories behind. Everything was quiet and rather empty – a door opened here and there or an attendant showed up with a tray of samples and phials. When they entered a room, the technicians inside looked up with a dazed smile on their faces. It was the same, Flynn realized at one point, the same expression that had been on the faces of the young ENCOM engineers back in the early ‘80s: they all knew that they were working on something very special and new, something that was going to change the world.

 

  Alan must have felt similarly as he was introduced to the facility and the associates. He was quiet and amused; he looked at Flynn often, as he was trying to figure how he had come up with this idea, with the idea of a pharmaceutical company.

 

  “And what will be your first product?” asked Alan when they sat down in the small cafeteria. Flynn felt the urge of his old, wicked self: that one would have answered without hesitation:

 

  “We have the cure for cancer.”

 

  And then he would look at Alan as his old friend would stare at him with disbelief and then would go pale, understanding that Flynn was serious and would be happy that he was sitting already. But they were two aged, wise men now, so he was going slower.

 

  “We have some very encouraging results,” he said. And Flynn remembered, as he was sitting there, at the plastic table, with his coffee cup in his hand, that when he had learnt about those encouraging results, nobody had given him a notice.

 

  It happened in a sunny Monday morning, not long after they opened the complex. The doctors and technicians had not even finished with installing all the equipment and the research had barely started. The first thing he heard when he entered the hallway was dr. Kaur’s voice: she was screaming at the top of her lungs. Flynn rushed there and he found her in the ring of young doctors. Dr. Kaur was yelling at one of them, at a young man with glasses. Flynn had never seen her being so upset, so angry – but the scene was strange, unreal. Every single person in the room, including dr. Kaur and her victim, seemed to be drugged, shaken. The young doctor, that was targeted by dr. Kaur’s anger, was staring at the floor repentantly; much to Flynn’s surprise he was crying openly.

 

  “What’s going on here?” asked Flynn. Dr. Kaur looked at him; her eyes cleared up slowly. She took his arm and led him to another room where they could be alone.

 

  “He stole the bag of blood that I brought here Friday evening,” he said. Her voice was calm and she was talking slowly, as if she was considering the weight of her own words. “His uncle is in a local hospital, final stage of lung cancer. Dr. Lee secretly replaced the patient’s infusion with the blood and gave him as a transfusion.”

 

  Flynn was silent. He could have started yelling, could have run to the other room to fire the young doctor right away. Instead of that he was waiting, even though he knew what dr. Kaur was going to say. He knew it since very long.

 

  “There was a violent reaction, so violent that it almost killed the patient. Heavy spasm, high body temperature, hyperventilation. Shortly after the patient fell into coma. Dr. Lee notified the hospital staff, but not before he removed the empty blood bag and the traces of his actions. The hospital called the rest of the relatives so that they could be there when the patient passes away.” Dr. Kaur looked at Flynn. He was thinking about the young doctor in the other room. He was crying from the happiness, he realized. “It did not happen. The patient woke up Saturday night, tired, but otherwise fine. Fine! They did not examine him after the transfusion, because the hospital staff believed he was dying and so we don’t know exactly how it happened, but he did recover from his cancer. From a metastatic, final stage cancer. When his doctors learnt what had happened, they submitted him to every possible test, but there was nothing to see by then. No tumors, no internal bleeding and no other symptoms, which had been killing him a few hours before.”

 

  Dr. Kaur laughed, almost bitterly.

 

  “Also, his glaucoma and type 2 diabetes, from which the patient suffered prior to his hospitalization, are gone too. There is a completely healthy, sixty-five years old man in the hospital, surrounded by stunned doctors. He is expected to return home in a week, and the only reason why they keep him at the clinic is that they want to run a few more tests, hoping that they could figure what happened.”

 

  They sat there in silence.

 

  “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted finally. “Or what to think.”

 

  “You knew that this would happen,” Flynn reminded her.

 

  “Yes. After a year or two. Or after five years. We were supposed to start working on the blood and tissue samples, to find out how it works and recreate it as medicine. This incident did nothing else, but endangered the whole project.”

 

  “What should happen to dr. Lee?”

 

  “Honestly? You should fire him right now. He stole. Also, none of them knows, from where the blood and tissue samples are coming. It was an incredible irresponsibility from him, a desperate measure.”

 

  “He did exactly what you expected from him,” said Flynn.

 

  “What?” cried out dr Kaur angrily. “I had no idea about his plans.”

 

  “That’s not what I meant. He stole the blood to save that man. Once successful, he could have left, could have gone to the media, or could have come back to steal more and sell it. Instead he came back and told you everything. This is what sort of people you brought on board, because I asked you to do so.”

 

  “Yes. And had he been caught with the blood bag in the hospital, he would be arrested by now and our whole project would be shut down. What do you think, what would happen to Quorra, should the authorities learn about her? She would disappear and they would cut her to pieces alive…”

 

  Dr. Kaur fell silent and looked away quickly. _That_ , Flynn thought, _would not be very different from what we are doing to her_. Later Quorra was delighted to hear that news; her cheeks went red and her eyes brightened.

 

  “Cancer?” she asked again. It meant something to her, that her blood cured that disease and Flynn could not tell, what was behind Quorra’s feverish excitement.

 

  No, he had not gotten any warning before facing those facts, not the way he was sparing Alan Bradley now, giving him only part of the truth.

 

  “This is very interesting,” said Alan. He could have told him, Flynn was thinking, he could have told Alan that they had the cure for cancer, for every disease on the world, that they had found the potion of eternal life, and yet Alan would sit there with that amused smile – and he, Kevin Flynn would know that Alan would be still waiting for him to start talking honestly. Not that Alan did not care about those inventions – Flynn knew he did –, but it was a lesser concern, a secondary issue for him. What Alan wished to hear about, was his efforts to reconcile with his son; but he had no such news. What was the point of telling Alan about the countless phone calls, which had never been returned? Here, here he could make a difference – and so his place was here for now.

 

  “Well, healthcare is a big business,” said Alan. “I’m sure you will be fine.”

 

  “I’m sure about that too. But I don’t want this company just to be one of the pharmaceutical companies. We will not send our agents to meet physicians and bribe them to recommend our products. Also, we are already trying to find a way to distribute our medicines outside of the current insurance system.”

 

  Alan looked at him surprisedly.

 

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

 

  “It means that there will be no patient that could not get our products because of financial problems or for not having insurance. Since these products will be prescription drugs, we might not be able to completely avoid the insurance system, but we will keep our prices cheap enough so that it could not be the issue for anybody.”

 

  “How will you make enough money to continue the research and pay your employees? Your company is just one of the thousand pharmaceutical firms, and it is a new one. Do you still expect people to come and buy aspirin from you from now on?”

 

  Flynn laughed.

 

  “Yes,” he said. “I expect them to do so.”

 

  “You seem to have great confidence in your new company,” said Alan Bradley with a disbelieving smile.

 

  “Yes,” Flynn replied. “I do.”

 

 

III.

 

  She tossed the book away and climbed out from the bed. It was late in the night; the room was illuminated by the reading lamp next to the bed. Outside of the window there was the dark hillside and the lights of the city beyond that. It was quiet: they were alone in the house, Quorra in her bedroom and Flynn is in the study. She knew that she would find him there if she looked, bent above his desk, with his glasses on.

 

  Quorra checked her phone, but there were no new messages. She had already said good night to Junior and dr. Kaur; next to Flynn those were the only people she was in daily contact. She should have been asleep by now; but the nights when she was alone, were hard. During the day Quorra was busy with the medical exams, with hiking and walking around, spending time with Junior and sometimes with Flynn – but at nighttime there was nothing between her and the dark thoughts.

 

  She went downstairs without turning on the lights. The spacious kitchen was empty and clean: in the refrigerator there was loads of fresh, frozen meal. Quorra chose one container and put it in the microwave. She was not particularly hungry, but coming down here and eating was better than sitting in her room. Her wrist was stinging; she peeled off the bandage and licked the wound. They had skinned her lower arm under local anesthesia; by the time the effect of the drugs ceased, the wound completely closed. It healed without scar and infection; she knew that by next morning there would be no reminder of the procedure. This would help, dr. Kaur had explained to her, to create a serum for people in need of skin transplant and burn victims. Quorra just nodded and offered her bare arm to the doctor. Do it, she said, and she hoped, she dearly hoped that Sam Flynn would soon learn about all those results. The younger Flynn had called her cancer once – and she was eternally grateful to the fate that it was exactly that disease that had been first cured by her blood.

 

  She sneaked to the door of the study. It had been left ajar: in the room Flynn was sitting behind his desk. He was talking on the phone to somebody – it was about business, about the new company. Quorra retracted silently. She picked up her tray and went back to her room. So many phone calls, even at night; he probably talked to someone in another time zone. Meetings, conference calls, messengers delivering express packages to the house or to the office – the new business, licenses and endless paperwork, the lawsuit… The lawsuit for ENCOM, the legal procedure, which was moving forward, but slowly, way too slowly. Quorra would wake up in the middle of the night, breathing heavily as if a large piece of rock would be lying across her chest, thinking about the unbelievably long time, which had passed since their departure from the Grid.

 

  “Too late,” she would whisper with dry lips, the sheets too hot against her sweaty skin. “It’s too late now.”

 

  Yet she found the strength and courage every morning to start; she was supposed to change the world after all. And Quorra smiled, even when she felt dizzy after giving blood or was in pain because they took bone marrow from her and it hurt. They asked her if she wanted them to stop, if she wanted to take a few days off from the examinations. Quorra refused the offer every time.

 

  “The ISOs,” Kevin Flynn had used to say, back in their home on the Grid, “were going to be my gift to the world.”

 

  Then, what sort of gift she would have been, had she asked for a break, for a day off? A day off would have meant a month of delay, about thirty days wasted in the system. Because it was her plan: to take the system back, out from Sam Flynn’s hands, this way or another. Aside from doing what was expected from her, this was the intention behind her actions. Not a secret as she was asking Flynn about the lawsuit and if there were any other options, almost every day – but Quorra wanted it to happen quicker, not in two or three years. Two years in the User world was longer than a century in the Grid; and even if a program’s consciousness was very different from a human’s, a hundred years of suffering was way too much to survive. Quorra would lie next to Junior, her mind clouded by pleasure and happiness; and she would burst out in tears a moment later, for she imagined that all that, what they just shared, what meant to be gentle and consensual, would happen to somebody against their will.

 

  “What?” Junior would ask, jumping immediately, worried that he might have hurt her.

 

  “Nothing,” Quorra would answer, smiling through tears; it was too early to reveal any of those thoughts. And so she woke up every day, did the job and lived her life; if it was her life and her decisions, and not the part of the plan that she had to come up. _Don’t ever try to trick_ _anybody_ , Flynn had told him once, and it was a warning that Quorra could not forget.

 

  “What about tricking myself?” she whispered to herself in the darkness. But nobody was around to hear her and those words were not meant to others anyway.

 

 

IV.

 

  The basement was dark and dusty. The dirty window filtered the bright light of the sun: Flynn reached out and turned on the lamps as he entered the room. It was working; they had not disconnected the electricity in the Arcade. That was one of the reasons, one of the tiny details for which he was still alive. Everything was there, except for the laser and the hard drive: all the furniture, the notes, and the rest of the computer. Sam had not taken any of the appliances, the same way as he had not taken anything from Flynn’s belongings and properties – except for ENCOM. It seemed it was important for his son to show his contempt toward Flynn; and that taking the company was not about money.

 

  A car drove by and then it went quiet. How deserted the area had become, Flynn was thinking, even dangerous. It was indeed a miracle that the place had not been burglarized during the years. But then: it was just an old Arcade with ancient machines – out there people were walking around now with gadgets worth more in their pockets. This new age, here, was very different: everybody was rushing for the new, the latest – at the same time old vinyls, vintage cars and arcade machines changed ownership for great sums of money. The mementos of another time, when things were somewhat slower, simpler.

 

  Flynn walked to the shelves and looked at the notes and photos which were hanging there. Everything was dusty, colorless, quiet. How many times he had come downstairs and sat down here, excited and full of ideas, hardly waiting to be done with all the other tasks and start the laser already. It was meant to be the source of new, great things – and what had he given the world after all? An operating system?

 

  It was a few days before that they were sitting in the car and Flynn looked at the dashboard. Suddenly he remembered the new ENCOM product and that he had never asked his chauffeur if that gadget had been installed in the car.

 

  “Yes, Sire,” the driver answered. “The vehicle has the plug.”

 

  Flynn was actually surprised by his own astonishment: what did he expect? Quorra was sitting next to him and she frowned, like every time, when Sam or ENCOM was mentioned.

 

  “Are you satisfied with it?” he asked.

 

  “Sire?” asked back the chauffeur.

 

  “You don’t regret buying it, do you?”

 

  “It’s saved me hundreds of dollars already. I only regret that I didn’t buy it earlier: by the time I purchased it, there was a waiting list at the body shop and I had to wait for the installation.”

 

  Flynn nodded. Everybody wanted to save money; of course they got the gadget. He had one too: he bought it at a convenience store. They had it on the counter, right next to the cash machine. Usually, they explained when Flynn asked, companies paid for that spot, so that their products, gums, candy bars or energy drinks would be right in front of the customers. But then, the clerk laughed, the employees got enough of running back and forth in the store for the ENCOM plug, so they ended up putting it right there. Flynn did not see a single person leaving the store without the gadget during the short time he spent there – he bought one too, even though he did not have an own car to drive. At home he opened the small carton box, which had the ENCOM logo on it. The tool itself was surprisingly small and light, made of steel parts. The users’ guide warned the customers to have the gadget installed by a professional mechanic. Flynn examined the product: it was meant to be attached to the engine of the vehicle. It was stunningly simple, something, which should have been discovered decades earlier. Except for it was not the result of human thinking: it was from the Grid.

 

  He touched the smooth surface of the desk. The keyboard of the computer should have come alive there, had the machine been turned on. What had Sam thought, when he had come here for the first time and had seen the hidden office? His son had been bold, Flynn realized, to release that gadget. Oh yes, the customers were happy to buy the tool and reduce the oil consumption of their cars – but the oil producers did not share that happiness. Flynn was too busy at the beginning; he could not pay attention to the headlines of newspapers and the television reports, which were about international negotiations, talks between the OPEC and the main oil consumer countries and changes in the power relations of the Middle East. It was about money, it was always about money – the world did not need that much oil anymore and it was changing everything. One life meant nothing in this enormous machine: they could have killed Sam or made him simply disappear. His son took the risk and he won. Along with other high volume changes, the ENCOM stocks hit record high – the shareholders had never liked Sam better and had never been against Kevin Flynn’s return this much.

 

  The office chair next to the desk was clean: he sat down. Yes, they were changing the world, ENCOM was making a difference and so was Flynn’s new company; soon. Very late, twenty years later than it was supposed to, it was happening finally – but still, something was wrong, something was horribly wrong. Flynn closed his eyes in the dim room.

 

  The wind: the never ceasing sound of the system. He knew, even when he was on the Grid that it was only the hard drive and the fans: but once there, it was real. Always the wind, always the same night sky, outside of the windows of his private residences – and always the same loving touches and kisses. His palms rested against the combat suit on the program’s thighs: Tron’s hands on his shoulders were light and gentle. Soft lips touched his face. Flynn looked up at the program who was sitting in his lap.

 

  “I thought you were dead,” Flynn said quietly in the dark office. His young self in the memory was speechless; he bent ahead to kiss Tron. The program laughed and let the User kiss him. Kevin Flynn, in his old study under the Arcade, felt a single tear rolling down his cheek.

 

  On the way home he was watching the streets silently. The driver was quiet too and according to Flynn’s request he turned the radio off. There was nowhere to rush: it was Sunday and Quorra was spending the afternoon with Edward Dillinger Jr. This, this relationship was a mystery for Flynn: how could Quorra come up with such an idea? One would think she had enough on her plate anyway, and then – an affair? And if that was not enough; Dillinger Junior? It just did not make sense. She was in love, apparently, but she was also planning something: Flynn had known her for too long to miss that.

 

  There was a car parked close to the gate of the hillside house. First he did not pay much heed: the neighbors were coming and going all the time. But this car was an old Volkswagen and a man was sitting behind the wheel, clearly waiting for something. Flynn glanced there.

 

  “Stop the car!” he told his chauffeur, even though he was unsure, not certain. The man in the Volkswagen was middle-aged, disheveled: Kevin Flynn did not know him. Or did he? It was a memory; yet not a memory of a man – but of a program. He jumped out of the car. The driver of the Volkswagen started his vehicle immediately and drove away without looking back. Flynn wanted to yell his name, just to find that he did not know it… not in this world.

 

  “Ram,” he mumbled.

 

 

 

 

V.

 

  The large massage chair was comfortable; music and the strong smell of acetone filled the room. Somebody offered Quorra a magazine, but the polish on her hand was not dry yet and for that she refused it. She was watching the girl putting on the silver polish on her toenails now. It was interesting: similar to the body modifications programs had used to have in the system.

 

  Dr. Kaur was sitting next to Quorra in another massage chair. She was reading a newspaper, glancing up often if everything was fine with Quorra. It was the doctor’s idea to bring her to the salon. Initially Quorra said no; she knew that dr. Kaur felt guilty about her.

 

  “If it wouldn’t be you, it would be somebody else,” told her Quorra. “And I am happy that it is you.”

 

  But the doctor insisted and Quorra finally agreed; she was curious anyway. She was following dr. Kaur and was pretending that she knew what to do; they chose colors and treatments.

 

  “Thank you, doctor,” said Quorra politely.

 

  “You don’t have to…” dr. Kaur said. “My name is Balpreet. Please.”

 

  That, Quorra was thinking, that was how it was happening. People met, were shaking hands and introduced themselves. They went out together and began to call one another their first names. Was not it the same with her and Junior? They exchanged phone numbers after the first dinner and started texting each other a few days later. She would have changed her mind, Quorra thought, had she felt the situation forced, unnatural – but it was exciting and amusing; almost like a game. A date in the park, going out for lunch or for a movie: and there was no push, no obligations. What _was_ , what she was getting, that was real attention; for the first time since her arrival to the User world. For Quorra that was one of the most staggering things about people: the total lack of awareness, the way they paid no attention to what was told to them, to the obvious signs. Even when he seemed to be absent-minded, Junior was always present and remembered everything that she said. As time passed, Quorra felt more and more certain that soon she would begin talk to him, to tell him a tale about a dark empire and its denizens.

 

  The house was empty when she got home. Quorra went to her room and lay down. She was resting there for a while, and then she felt that strange restlessness awakening again. Time; the fear of losing time. Often she was wondering, how Flynn could handle this difference between the timekeeping of the two worlds, before his exile. How did he know what to expect, what sort of changes would await for him on the Grid? She jumped on her feet and began to make circles in her room. She had to divert her thoughts, to focus on something else. She picked up a pillow and stood before her large dressing mirror. Without thinking she tucked the pillow under her t-shirt; then she was staring at her reflection. Was this, Quorra was wondering, was this on her mind from the beginning? Once the ISOs had emerged from the digital sea; but she was a human now – would she hold her child in her arms one day? If so, would it be an ISO, with her perfect genetics or a real human? Would it be something else, something new? Quorra was breathing heavily.

 

  “Cancer,” she whispered. The ISOs had emerged one by one, regardless of the capacity of the system – they were similar to human beings in that too. She pulled the pillow out from under her top and threw it away. She went to Flynn’s study and returned with a blue marker. Quorra sat down on the carpet, pulled up the sleeve of her shirt and began to draw on her skin. It was the pattern of her lost circuitry; she paid particular attention to recreate the ISO symbol on her forearm. She was working on that for long; she did not even notice when she started to hum to herself quietly, an old song of a long lost world.

 

 

VI.

 

  It was the first time that he visited Alan Bradley in his home; Flynn was not surprised to see that he was living in the same house where he had used to be, thirty years before. There were changes; the paint was new and there was a garage now at the end of the narrow driveway. Outside in the garden a sandbox had used to be – now it was the same even, green lawn.

 

  “Thank you for the invitation,” said Kevin Flynn. “I appreciate it.”

 

  “You’re welcome,” replied Alan. He gave Flynn a glass of ice water.

 

  “Is it alright?”

 

  “She said, you wouldn’t set foot here ever again,” nodded Alan, without actually mentioning Lora. “But this is my house too, and she is away for the weekend.”

 

  Alan Bradley sat down as well and looked at him expectantly. He knew, Flynn thought, he always knew when it was more than a courtesy call; he knew that Flynn had not come to talk about the weather.

 

  “There is a bunch of people, sitting around the building of the new company. They are mostly harmless: they make photos and videos, but mainly just sit there with their placards. They wear these jackets and t-shirts reading ‘Flynn lives’ Also, I get a lot of mail from them.”

 

  “Oh,” said Alan. “Your fans. Don’t worry about them.”

 

  “I’m not worried. Who are they?”

 

  “Most of them are video game fans. Your work and later your disappearance were very intriguing for many people. ENCOM gave up on you quite readily; these people came together in a club, committed themselves to finding you.”

 

  Flynn nodded.

 

  “I saw all the websites,” he said. “They are quite dedicated, aren’t they? They had all the videos of television appearances and interviews uploaded and discussed. I also found a thorough analysis of my last book. The writer was trying to find codes and coordinates, hidden in the text in order to locate me.”

 

  Alan laughed.

 

  “Oh, that one,” he said. “You see, you don’t have to worry about them. They are your fans. It is just a few people: it’s been thirty years. Now you see many, because of the media exposure, but this will pass, soon. You are back, after all.”

 

  Flynn smiled too. He was amazed: amazed how gracefully Alan evaded the truth without actually lying.

 

  “I guess, that’s how it is,” he said, still smiling. “If you are saying so, ISOlated Thinker.”

 

  Alan stopped laughing so quickly as if he had been yelled at. He straightened himself in his chair and took off his glasses. He polished the lenses slowly, meticulously. Flynn was waiting.

 

  “How did you figure?” asked Alan Bradley. His usual, expressionless look had returned by then: it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

 

  “Quite simply: I registered an account on the organization’s website. I was browsing through the list of the members, and this user name caught my eyes. This, this ISOlated Thinker, is just a simple member, yet it is one of the oldest accounts, one of the first registrations.”

 

  “And what makes you think that it is me?”

 

  “The caps. I’ve never talked about the ISOs to anybody, except for you. Granted, I did not tell you what the name meant, but you remembered. You always remembered. This, this name had no meaning to anybody, but for you. And me, of course.”

 

  Alan shrugged.

 

  “It doesn’t change anything. Yes, I was hoping that you would return. Yes, I did register on the site. Happy now?”

 

  “You founded the organization with your friend, Roy.”

 

  Alan did not reply. He stood up and walked to the window which overlooked the garden. He was standing there for a while, with his back to Flynn.

 

  “It did not add up,” said Flynn. “Then I saw him around my house. I wanted to talk to him, but he drove away.”

 

  Alan looked at him above his shoulder.

 

  “He must have wanted to see you alive,” he said quietly.

 

  “He drove away when I spotted him.”

 

  “That sounds like Roy,” said Alan and turned back at the window. They were silent for long minutes. Finally Alan turned and went back to his seat.

 

  “Those were different times,” he said. “And frankly, nobody cared. They restructured the company, letting go some of the most inventive programmers. I could have saved Roy’s job: I still had enough power, even after they new chairman was appointed. But he refused it: he had enough. Later he worked for the company as a freelancer, here and there, but really he just wanted to be around – that was not the same anymore.”

 

  “He and I, we weren’t even friends.”

 

  A bitter grimace crossed Alan’s face.

 

  “Why, did you have any friends?” he asked. “Like, people that you were honest with? No, you didn’t know Roy, but he still believed in your work. Why does it matter? He will not bother you.”

 

  “It does not matter,” replied Flynn. “And I don’t mind him stopping by. But you expect honesty from me, without providing the same on your side.”

 

  “I’m being honest with you.”

 

  “Are you? Are they, these club members, are they indeed so innocent?”

 

  “Most of them.”

 

  “And the rest? ZackAttack, who keeps on making fun of ENCOM on various forums and seems to be better informed about the company’s inner structure and decision making process than an insider? Or another member, called Spacenoid, who outed himself as Sam, when he uploaded the OS12 on the internet and got arrested right away. Or the other members of the hard core, whose aliases are surprisingly similar to certain user names on message boards that belong to the Anonymous and another organization called WikiLeaks.”

 

  Alan smiled coldly.

 

  “Flynn lives’ is not a company,” he said. “It’s not that you are hiring your members. They come and go freely. You were the main shareholder of a hi-tech company and also a visionary of that age. Why are you surprised that your actions and disappearance inspired another group of geeks as well? You talked about free and available information with such high praise: well, aren’t they your faithful heirs in that sense? They give the world that free information, even if governments don’t want them to, even if there is a price. You don’t like the way it is, you want to change the system? You are more than welcome to step ahead and make your statements, to make your own actions. But you are absolutely not welcome to come here and start blaming us for making our decisions.”

 

  “My son…”

 

  “Your son is a grown man. He is capable of choosing his own ways. And you know what? He did great. He is doing amazing, compared to what he could have been.”

 

  That left Flynn speechless. Alan Bradley turned away; he did not seem to be angry, but he was distracted. Those last words, Alan’s words recalled the images that Flynn had seen back in the Grid safe house, replayed from Gem’s disc. Alan was right in everything, except for one fact: information, advancement, the great inventions were never free. There was always a price to pay – only this time it was not a definite amount of money, gold or stocks; this time it was not them, Users, who paid the price.

 

  There was a recurring dream he saw sometimes, in the safety of the hillside house. In the dream Flynn was alone in the dark first, but somehow he knew that he was back in the system. The disastrous meeting between Sam and him happened, but in the dream Flynn made a different decision and chose Tron instead of Quorra. He knew that he was not supposed to do that, that there was something wrong: but it was a dream, and no matter how many times he saw it, he could not change the course of events.

 

  He was standing there at the dim spot, where the portal would open in any moment. Sam was not there, yet Flynn was not alone. Tron was there, right next to him: they were facing each other. In the dream the program could not stand on his own and for that Flynn’s arms were wrapped around him tightly. Tron was wearing that white dress in which Flynn had seen him in the memory sequence. The program’s arms were hanging next to his body lifelessly and his head was tilted back. His eyes were glowing with their unusual blue light; his face was peaceful. Flynn wanted to talk, but the blinding, white glow of the portal lit up suddenly, before he could have opened his lips. The transmission began. Flynn looked down and saw the awe on Tron’s face. The program’s pale skin started to glow as his circuitry overheated: the glow in his eyes was now the white light of the portal. His body tensed in Flynn’s arms and he opened his lips for a silent scream: then the energy of the laser disintegrated him. For a moment his whole body was of the white blaze of the surrounding energy waves – then Flynn felt his weight lifting off from his arms and the program dissolved without a trace.

 

  There was no point to blame the people around himself: they did their best – even if their best was horrible, even the real faces they revealed were monster faces. Had his son been good, as everybody claimed it, righteous in every other way, but one; then Sam had already lost, he just did not know it yet – he had lost not to Flynn, not to other people, but to his own real nature.

 

  Alan turned back to him; he was back to his usual calm self.

 

  “Come,” he said. “Let’s go out for a walk.”

 

 

 

 

VII.

 

  Quorra closed door and the car started. She was watching the street as they were leaving the house, toward the city. It was early in the afternoon, Saturday: she was done with her daily duties. At the crossing hikers were walking uphill, to the nearby trail.

 

  She looked down at the note in her hand. Two days earlier she was looking for Flynn and walked in his study. He was not there and Quorra was about to leave right away. Then she saw the sheet of white paper in the middle of the desk and she went there. There was a short note on the paper. ‘The mirror crack’d from side to side’ it was reading – it did not make much sense to her. Somehow she felt intrigued about it; she still did not use the internet, but the day before she stopped at the library and then she found out the meaning of those words.

 

  “Out flew the web and floated wide;

   The mirror crack’d from side to side;

   The curse is come upon me,” *see note

 

  Did Flynn, Quorra was thinking, did he mean the curse that he had brought on himself or the curse that his offspring had been to the Grid? She put the note in her pocket and resumed watching the city.

 

  The car stopped in front of a tall apartment building. She released the chauffeur; she did not need a ride back. Quorra walked in the building; at the security desk she just greeted the guard and went to the elevator – they knew her by then. The hallway was quiet up there. She walked to one of the doors and entered, for the door had been left open for her. Quorra smiled for herself. The large window on the other side of the living room was open and the light curtain was drifting in the mild breeze. She was silent as she walked. There were drawings and sketches on the desk she crossed: of a new video game that Junior had shown her already. There were crossbow men and other warriors on the paper: a fine design, which would surely bring him more recognition. Quorra smiled. She heard his voice from the kitchen; Junior was talking on the phone.

 

  “Hey,” she said as she stopped at the door. He turned around quickly, with a surprised look. Then he smiled and tossed the phone away without bothering to say goodbye to them. Behind him there was a steaming skillet on the stove. She walked to Junior and they kissed. Then she took his hand and led him to the living room.

 

  “Sit down,” she said, still smiling. He smiled back, expectantly. Quorra sat down in front of him.

 

  “I have a story to tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Lord Alfred Tennyson: The Lady Of Shalott


	12. Ghost in the Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But why is a siren always dangerous?"
> 
> "Because it will possess you not by bearing your child but by taking you down in the deep and never releasing you again. It's sterile, you see, and sex with a siren bears no fruit, is an act against nature."
> 
> Francesca Marciano: The rules of the wild

I.

 

  Running. The sensation of running. He was in motion after recognizing the threat, immediately – but his actions were slow, delayed. There was some error, some unusual slip which eased the pace and held him back. Yet he was moving ahead, while other programs were running in the opposite direction, away from the danger. That was something familiar and woke up the old instinct in him – the drive to protect, to keep the system safe. He was rushing, despite of the odd wobbliness.

 

  At the edge of the platform he stopped, crouched down and looked down cautiously. By then there was nobody else around: the rest of the programs escaped. There was something strange about the surface where he kneeled: it was not the even ground of the homeland and not the bright panels of Flynn’s new world. It was different, unreal, just as the grey sky above. Down in the alley there was the reason of the previous fright: a monstrous program was tearing off the Grid structure with its four, articulated forelegs. Sparkling wires hung from the holes in the ground; below that there was a terrifying abyss, dark nothingness.

 

  He jumped. Without his usual strength and limberness the action was clumsy; he fell on his knees. The intruder noticed the move and turned around, away from the destruction. He straightened himself and reached for his disc – just to find it out of its place. His fingers barely brushed the edge of the disc; and the giant program he faced with was already about to attack. With no time left to think, he forced his arm behind his back again; the disc unlocked with a soft click. He stepped ahead, ready to fight – but something was missing, something was horribly wrong. For the first time now he looked at his disc and then he knew: it was the sound of the activating disc, which was missing. The white ring was humming lazily in his grip, without the blazing edges – the disc of a Siren, not designed for combat. Now he understood his previous slowness. His hand fell down and he turned at the intruder once more: there was only sad resignation, no fear, for this was not reality, just another dream. The giant program sprang on; the ground was shaking under its heavy pounding.

 

  System failure. Not enough; recognizing the dream was never enough to wake up; it just left him in a dazed state, scratching the surface of consciousness. At least the dream was gone. It was easier without them: but they would return anyway. There were different levels of consciousness, and dreaming was similar to his previous, reprogrammed state, in which he had spent almost a thousand cycles. That was him too, only with limited and modified decision making process. In a sense it had been a much simpler way of living: there were clear rules and orders, unambiguous guidelines – and he had followed those without second thoughts, without hesitation. It was very different from how things had been before, when the system had been filled by the most diverse crowd – and not all of them had been of good intentions. But it had been part of the job to negotiate, to investigate and only take lives when there was no other option to choose.

 

  “I don’t think they’re happy to see us,” he said. They had been riding through the city on their bikes at high speed; and it hurt, even to remember how it had once felt to ride a bike. Next to him Kevin Flynn’s white cycle was speeding.

 

  “What do you expect?” he heard Flynn’s voice through the communicator. “It’s like we’re from different planets. Well, I guess we are.”

 

  They stopped their bikes in the middle of the great square, in the heart of Arjia City. The ISOs were staring at them and they talked excitedly, pointing at them.

 

  “That’s just it,” he said. “They want to be independent. They want their own little world. They want to split away from the rest of the Grid. In a way, they have.”

 

  That was the truth, but only part of the truth, for the ISOs were using their common resources. They wanted their independence – but were taking their share at the same time. And when the subsequent system glitches became more and more frequent, they were of no help. Programs would have assisted, would have tried to help and solve the situation – but in a sense the ISOs were rather similar to the User and they decided to handle the problems on their own way.

 

  “I’m happy to let them develop independently,” Flynn replied, “but we need to help Clu find some balance between their needs and his.”

 

  There were two programs standing on the top of the stairs which led to the entrance of the great Arjian administration building.

 

  “They’re waiting for us?” he asked surprisedly.

 

  “Word gets around,” said Flynn. “Let me do the talking, Tron.”

 

  They walked upstairs. The ISOs were waiting for them there: Radia, their chosen leader and Giles, the head of their security. They stood there with phlegmatic face.

 

  “It’s been a long time, Flynn,” said Radia.

 

  “It’s good to see you again,” he replied.

 

  “Flynn, the so-called creator,” said Giles. “You look smaller than I had imagined.”

 

  Tron did not move. It was unheard, that insolence, such disrespect; and there had been a time when Giles would have regretted uttering those words. But that was long before; these days it was about negotiation and patience, rather than about fight. It was often confusing: but that was what Flynn wanted and so it was the right thing to do. Tron looked at Giles. The ISO had never seen Flynn before: it was hard to even imagine for a program to actually exist here without meeting the User.

 

  “They are both guests in our city, Giles,” said Radia. “Be nice.”

 

  Tron managed not to hiss in contempt. Their city – like any of their settlements were outside of the system, as if they did not live on Flynn’s Grid.

 

  “They may be guests, but are you here to apologize for your lapdog, Clu?” shouted Giles. “Radia doesn’t want to acknowledge, that things have changed. That we’re better off alone.”

 

  “We’re not here for any of that,” said Tron before Flynn could have reacted. He was not supposed to talk; but he could not stand the insults, aimed at the Flynn. “We’re here to talk about the terrorist attacks.”

 

  “You come here to insult my people?” howled Giles. “Have you no shame? Your programs have derezzed innocents, and you have the gall to come here and call my people terrorists?”

 

  “I’m sorry, Flynn,” said Radia. “But this is a problem we need to prepare on our own.” 

 

  Flynn turned away without a word. Tron followed suit; it was always the same. Flynn treated the ISOs differently, as if they were his equals, not programs. Tron understood, or tried to understand that they were not the same, that they were more than the rest of the citizens on the Grid – but Flynn was still the User, the only one with sufficient insight and power to make decisions for all of them. Yet he did not do that: he let things to work out on their own.

 

  “That went well,” the Creator said on the way out. They got on their bikes.

 

  “I’m sorry,” said Tron. “I should have let you do the talking. I’m no diplomat.”

 

  “Neither I am. I’m just still in awe that they’re actually standing there. They’re amazing. I didn’t make them, but I feel responsible for them.”

 

  He should have found the words, Tron thought later: it was his responsibility too. He should have seen the signs – but the time ran out at the end. He was lying on the ground, unarmed, and Clu was standing above him, with his disc raised high. One of his rare mistakes – but surely the last one. Or not, not entirely; for the Creator had gotten away and he was going to fix everything at last. That did not make much difference for Tron, but it was reassuring to know; a last moment of solace before the disc came down and all went black.

 

  Falling forever; or almost so – for a thousand cycles. It was easier, without the constant doubt. He did have all the memories from before, only he did not relate to them the way he had used to. He did recognize the rebels when he faced them: but the memory of old policies did not hold his hand back. It seemed like he was around for the longest time, to protect the system and serve; to serve in every possible way.

 

  “Why didn’t you strike?” Clu asked him once. They were alone at Clu’s private quarters. He – Rinzler – was rumbling quietly, happily, for the order of life was so unambiguous, so clear: he was always fighting for the system, for the greater good… he was always loved. The system administrator touched his chin and turned Rinzler’s face toward himself. He repeated the question and Rinzler went silent. He understood the question: Clu wanted to know why he had not killed him during the coup, when he could have done it so easily. The answer was easy: he never wanted Clu’s death, not even his previous version, which was jumping around the User and his unreasonable whims so willingly. He wanted Clu to stop; even his old self, that knew that the price would be great, had he failed, even that one chose to take his chances and did not fling his disc. Rinzler knew that, but it would have been difficult for him to explain it. Instead he began to rumble again and kissed the palm which was resting against his face. The look that Clu gave him, assured him that the system administrator understood his answer.

 

 

 

  Sometimes, during that eternity, he looked at the Outlands. It was dark and seemingly empty: somewhere there was the hideout of the fallen User. He, Rinzler could not go there: he was not able to cross the border of the city and had no intention to fight against that restriction. The User had been wrong in every possible sense and would have caused the destruction of the system – and yet Rinzler felt his own reluctance, a deep rejection against the very idea of hurting him. That feeling had nothing to do with their time together, with some emotions – it was a basic part of him, so vital that he would have been a different program without it. The word – User – evoked an old memory, in which he was standing in a beam of light, listening to the orders of his own programmer. _The knowledge must come, and the instructions; it was the function of every program to contact and serve its User_. It reminded him of that old faith; that Users knew better, that following their directions meant to build a better world. It was odd to recognize that he still had such ideas, even if buried deep inside – but then, he never met Users again, and his new programming had never been challenged.

 

  Not, until he kneeled there, in the Arena, watching the blood smeared on the floor.

 

  “User,” he growled. It hurt. He did not know from where that pain came, but it was a growing, intense sensation of _hurthurthurt_ and it grew significantly after he returned his discs to their place. He stood up and pulled his opponent on his feet too. He tilted his head back, looking up at the Throne Ship above. Help, he wanted to say, but his lips did not move. His hand was on the other program’s arm and…

 

  “Identify yourself, program,” Jarvis’s voice filled the Arena.

 

  “I’m not a program,” he warrior next to Rinzler replied. He was angry, rebellious. The crowd around them was loud and expectant.

 

  “Identify!” It was Clu, he knew. He could barely see; he just wanted to get to the ship and get fixed.

 

  “My name is Sam Flynn,” the program said. Everybody went silent.

 

 _Not a program, not a program._ He had attacked a User. It was excruciating: he was burning off from the inside. Everything in him refused that action, his new programming. Much to his relief two sentries came and took the User; they were on the way to the ship now. He could not do it anyway: in the elevator he fell on his knees and grabbed his helmet.

_“Tron! Location query. Confirm!”_

 

  That voice, that voice was so similar to his own –and not, at the same time: it was a memory, but it was very much present at the same time. It was calling him home. They were in the Observation Room of the ship now and others were talking; he could not pay attention. Tron – not Rinzler… never Rinzler. And that hurt, so badly as if he was dying; and he was indeed dying as he refused his own programming.

 

  “Rinzler,” said Clu. He turned there, just to look straight in the User’s eyes.

 

_“Confirmed, Alan-One.”_

 

  System failure. He shut down; at least the pain eased. He could not tell how much time passed, when he came back after. It felt long; for he looked through the memories of the previous thousand cycles with his old-new consciousness for the first time. It was hard and some strange dizziness distracted him – it was hard to focus. Tron wanted to move, just to find most of his body paralyzed. He felt the taste of energy on his lips: it should have helped, it should have given strength; but nothing happened. He recognized the place: it was Clu’s private room on the ship. Sadness descended on him, instead of fear; so they were back here again. Fight, argue, do something, the first instinct pushed him – and for what? He could be slow and his mind incoherent, but the memories were clear: for the longest time he had served the new order. Once he had been created to fight for the Users: yet he had spent most of his existence on Clu’s side. And Clu had never stopped; he had never changed his mind and intentions regarding his plans… regarding Tron. Now they were back to the beginning. Despondently he turned his face; until then he had not noticed the User – now he looked at Sam.

 

  He felt the wave of relief. _Everything will be alright_. The User was standing there on his own: he was not a prisoner, he was not under pressure. Whatever had happened, that finally changed the course of events in the system. Tron’s eyes rested on Sam, the way he had once looked at Kevin Flynn. Nothing of the shining, mighty creatures they had once imagined, back in the old system – but beyond the appearance of a regular program they could not be more different. An other kind of reasoning, a different sort of logic; but life came from them and what was the point of any activities on the Grid, if it did not serve a greater purpose? The long time of abandonment was about to end now.

 

  Excitedly, Tron stirred. He could barely move; and he could not even be angry about that, because that numbness was the result of his reversion.

 

  “Sam Flynn,” he growled. Even that, to utter a few words, was difficult for him. “User.”

 

  Sam stepped closer. His face was strange, empty – or on the contrary, the expressionless look covered something else. He touched Tron’s face and again that gesture reminded the program of Kevin Flynn. Sam reached out suddenly and took Tron’s disc. He trembled; but then, this young User, he was not supposed to know the manners of the system, not yet. Sam turned away, with the disc in his hand. Tron avoided looking at Clu: there was some sort of tension that he did not understand, but it made him somewhat worried. The circuits on Sam Flynn’s suit were burning red – that did not mean anything, Tron had seen the Creator with similar, disguised look before. He looked in front of himself, at his own disabled legs. Just then he noticed that he was wearing a silver-white suit and all his armor was gone. He was confused; but then Sam turned back to him and Tron lifted his face with eager, happy expectation. _Everything will be alright_. Sam reached out and put his hand on the back of Tron’s head.

 

_Everything_

_will be_

_alright._

 

 

II.

 

  It was quiet in the old system when he saw it for the last time. That was something he noticed rather quickly during his earlier visits: after Flynn’s Grid, his old home always seemed to be silent, unadorned. It was none of those; soon he began to hear the old noises, the well-known tunes again every time. Yet it was simple, a safe world now, the way they had left it, when Flynn had built his own world and had asked Tron to join him.

 

  He was watching the plains. It was a free system now and an open one; information and programs were coming and going all the time. It would not be the same, Flynn had told him before, and the new structure would belong only to him. Their home, Tron understood, was the shared playground of many Users, though they were not aware of it, they did not assume that what they had created – that actually lived. Flynn could not use it the way he wished to, and for that he was going to create his private new system; and move the laser, his gateway there. There came his offer to go with him, to help him building the new world. What an ambitious idea; for long Tron was telling himself that it was the reason, the greatness of that pledge, for which it was impossible to refuse. Was he surprised when he saw all the others to remain quiet, to shake their heads awkwardly? Probably not; those plans were bigger than them, bigger than a program. Tron felt her eyes on himself: a frightened look, because Yori knew, that he would go – she had known it for long.

 

  “Stay here,” she said, when they were left alone. “Stay with us.”

 

  She did not say ‘stay with me’. Always his guiding light; and he would have broken through walls for her, had she been in danger. But she was not: they were living in safety for which they had fought so hard. The challenge was outside of their system now: and so were the Users. With the laser gone Flynn would never come again; and nobody else, for the matter of fact. And it was gruesome to imagine that they had once touched the divine, just to say goodbye to it, just to loose it for good.

 

  “I’ll come back,” he replied without looking at Yori. Secretly he hoped that she would change her mind and join them later: a turn of heart that never happened. They grew apart, for their priorities, their work linked them to different places now. He should have known that before: they were programs and such, their tasks were the first and their personalities are secondary. Or he did know this prior to his decision: and he agreed to leave anyway.

 

  Tron lifted his gaze. He saw a small figure on the top of the slope: a program with blue circuitry, in a long, hooded cape. They were very far from each other, but he recognized her immediately. He raised his hand, stopping in the motion halfway. They were looking at each other from the distance and then she turned and disappeared from sight. Now, he thought, he would go back to the city, walk across the programs that would all stare at him, at his new, dark outfit and unique looking disc. Hands would reach out to touch the armor and there would be whispers. He could return, whenever he wished, that was part of the agreement – but could he really come back now? At the same time, it was the same on the new Grid: programs were sensitive about otherness. There would be always looks, unexpected gropes and remarks. He walked. There was somebody else approaching and it made him smile, when he recognized the program.

 

  They shook hands. Tron was quiet and Ram remained silent too. A hero of an age when deference could have meant survival, Ram had fought and died for freedom. Later Flynn reloaded him from the system back ups: Ram’s new version was just as friendly and straightforward than the one lost. He had gotten his life from Kevin Flynn and still, he did not deliberate long, when the User’s request came: he did not think long before he refused the offer.

 

  “Be safe,” said Ram. Tron nodded: that was the last time he saw them. They did not suffer, Flynn would say later and Tron would remember that statement when he would lie in the locked room of the retired Throne Ship. Had that been true, he would think, they got away easier than him. At least they did not see this, what all those mighty dreams would become – they did not see the shame.

 

  “Shame,” he whispered in the dim room, just for himself, as he was alone. It was completely silent and the only light was the golden blaze of some panels on the wall. A few cycles passed since his reversion; by then he learnt what kind of future was waiting for him – by then he had gotten used to the constant pain and humiliation. He was not surprised at Clu, not really: it was enough to look over his own memories to see that Clu had never deviated from his original instructions… from his old desires. He would create the perfect system, no matter what – he always got what he wanted, this way or another. But Sam… Users were not cruel, were not looking for revenge or indulged in someone else’s suffering… Or did they? They could be, Kevin Flynn had told him, just as brutal as any other creature on the Grid. But not this User: Sam had something to do with the Creator, they were related in a way that Flynn had tried to explain to Tron once. The program had not understood it, but that did not change the facts. This was not supposed to happen: yet Tron found himself pinned down and hurt almost without transition – and the only thing which provided some comfort was to know that he would not survive this anyway.

 

  The worse his surprise was to wake up and gradually find out the plans they had for him. Tron wanted to speak, to find a way out; but the words came out as a stutter and nobody cared for them anyway. He was lying in the User’s bed in the enormous new tower, which must have been built recently and looked at Sam, who was taking his jacket off. The User seemed to be grim, irritated as always; he glanced down at the program with lust in his eyes. Tron wanted to stay strong and just take it, whatever would come; but it was unbearable, to see a User to look at him with such hatred. He began to cry. Sam reached down and grabbed his shoulders, nearly lifting him up from the bed. He shook Tron forcefully.

 

  “Why didn’t you cry when he touched you?” he asked angrily. He threw down the program and climbed on him right away. He slid one hand under Tron’s neck and Sam leaned close to him with wicked expression on his face.

 

  “I’ll be inside you all night,” he promised; and then went and kept his promise.

 

  Desperate, wheezing sound filled the dark cell. It would have been so much quicker to expire with the rest, to go down with his old friends. They did not touch his programming, and for that the drive to look for threats to move around and keep things in order was still pushing him – but he could not even stir. If he could just talk, even think clearly, he could have looked for a solution, for a way out… a way out… Finally, too late to provide any comfort, insanity began to shade his consciousness. That, that abyss was going to consume him, soon and there would be no return: it was sad, but it was better than this neverending cycle of pain, the constant fear of them, to see which one would be coming for some entertainment.

 

  His eyes opened. This time it was Clu; he was standing above Tron, looking down with impassive face.

 

  “I fixed some of your coding,” the system administrator said. “You will be able to walk, along with other small repairs. You don’t have to be grateful, but there is one thing you have to keep in mind. If you ever try to run away, I will take back everything. Do you understand?”

 

  Tron was staring at him – and then he turned around as quickly as he just could, to present his disc port.

 

_A way out._

 

 

III.

 

  The terrace of the retreat was so close to the city limit that he could hear the noise of the vehicles on the streets. The house was built on a smaller energy source, as all of Flynn’s hideouts in the Outlands and it was close to the border. Tron was not afraid to leave the city, but the Outlands was no home for programs – Flynn sensed his quiet reluctance and moved some of these establishments closer to the inhabited area. The city and the light of the portal beyond that were bright and inviting.

 

  Tron turned and went inside. It was dark, yet he found his way easily. He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned ahead. The User was sleeping deep, for the program was there to monitor the environment and the passing of time. He kissed Flynn’s closed eyelids and the User stirred.

 

  “It’s time,” Flynn whispered; it was more of a question than a statement.

 

  “Yes, it is time,” replied Tron. There was no need to hurry, as he woke up the User early. He felt a hand on his nape, pulling him down and they kissed. Flynn let out a satisfied sigh. He had been nervous when he had arrived earlier, but he had eased gradually during his stay. It was like that, Tron knew: even with all the issues and problems, the Grid itself was always a playground for him, a big hideout. Clu never understood that, never accepted the fact that the system would always be secondary for him. That was something that Tron had learnt long time ago: when Kevin Flynn talked about equality, that did not mean, by any sense, that programs, even Clu ranged with him. It did not even mean equality amongst programs, not since the appearance of the ISOs that were obviously more important than Basics… more equal. Tron knew that since long and remembered that painful sting he had felt upon learning it.

 

  “Would he come?” asked Tron. “Alan-One? Would he come to see this place?”

 

  They were in the new system. It was at the beginning: the city was almost empty and only a few programs were around, working on the first establishments. Kevin Flynn was watching them without responding. Finally he turned at Tron.

 

  “He doesn’t know about this,” he said. He did not look in Tron’s eyes. “He doesn’t know that I’ve been here or how things work in this place.”

 

  “You could tell him,” the program replied, almost cheerfully. “And bring him here.”

 

  Flynn looked at him with sore expression.

 

  “I didn’t tell him at the beginning,” he said. “And a lot of time passed. It is too late, I can’t tell him now.”

 

  “Why?”

 

  “Because…” Flynn sighed. “There is a time to say things. I should have told him about all this long time ago – but I did not. We’re friends now, surprisingly enough, but friendship is about mutual respect and straightforwardness. I am sorry.”

 

  Tron looked at him, stunned, that the decision had been made already. He remained silent; what could he say? But then, they had time; things would change and he would meet his User. Many cycles later, in the dark room of the hideout they kissed; another eternity later Sam Flynn would ask him angrily, why he had done that, why he had seduced Flynn. And Tron would not answer, afraid of Sam’s reaction – for there was only one reason, one emotion which was not to be named. It was impossible to give that answer to the young User. Sam was clearly convinced that a program’s limited understanding, different consciousness meant that they could not love, could not be unreasonable enough to have actual emotions.

 

  “How would I look like?” asked Tron. He was sitting on the floor, with his disc in his hand. He would reboot after this update, he had been told, for the extent of the changes and there was a moment of hesitation before he put the disc back to the port. He glanced up at Flynn.

 

  “I don’t know,” Flynn replied; he was strangely shaken, somehow sad as he was looking down at the program. Tron was looking in his eyes as he returned the disc to its place – then everything went black. He knew, as he was waking up, he knew what changed: the Creator removed particles from his coding, parts, which linked him to Alan-One; the pieces which had made him resemble to his User. Tron understood it now: after a moment of sadness, sadness upon the loss, he smiled before opening his eyes. It was his decision; a willing sacrifice – but there was an unexpected part too. Unexpected, even for Flynn, the program could tell that when he saw the User’s shocked face: that after the removal those segments the computer would automatically act on its own and modify his coding… _to_ _perfect it_. That was what had happened, Flynn had said before, to the ISOs, the results of scanning his human DNA into the system repeatedly – the Grid gave it back in a corrected form, free of flaws, disease and glitches. That was what happened to the Sirens, the only creatures in the system, whose appearance was generated by the computer, without any added characteristics from Flynn: they looked perfect, but icy, robotic. The same thing happened to him now: he lost most of his features, which had made him similar to Alan-One – and got rectified by the system at the same time. His new look was pleasing to the eye; yet Clu’s face darkened when they first met after that reboot, darkened in a way that Tron thought the system administrator would punch him. Things changed; and Clu changed too, rapidly, from the friendly, reliable program he had once been, to a tyrant, who would not take no for an answer and would take what he wanted anyway. It would have been easy for Tron to hate him, when he was lying in Clu’s arms, screaming from the pain; but he was the same program, that had once laid there, treated gently, been whispered loving words. Clu probably did not know, that he was much more of a User than a program, with similar personality treats that Flynn had had once; but those characteristics had gotten distorted during the times – instead of giving up the system administrator would force things until they broke.

 

  The city limits… His thoughts went back to the safehouse. That place was gone by now, so as all the other secret hideouts Tron knew about; but there was more, he was certain about that. All of them built on small energy sources, away from the city – they were hard to locate. The establishments where Tron had been before were destroyed, simply because he knew about them, because the information was on his disc at the time of the coup. The rest, far, abandoned places in the Outlands; and once there, he could disappear. Clu could not find him, as he could not reach Flynn for a thousand cycles nor could Sam; even a User could not locate a program, outside of the system. Flynn had been able to find anybody in the city, with a simple location query, but not at the Outlands; that place, the Creator had said once was different, blurry – he could tell if a program got lost there, but could not locate it anymore. Being lost out there meant death; except if one could find one of those safe places before the time would run out. That, that was not much of a plan, but it was something to start with.

 

 

 

 

IV.

 

  The spread of the viral infection was contained: all the infected programs had been erased or locked up and the sick, yellow color of the outbreak changed back to the normal, light hue of the city upon the work of the recovery crew down on the street. Recognizers were circling above, looking for the virus and other threats; the recent, violent events shook the community - everybody was alert, tense.

 

  The helmeted program that was crouching on the edge of the rooftop, looked up. A new system monitor, that had already proven himself during the panic at the inauguration ceremony.

 

  “I need you to track down that virus and maintain surveillance on it,” said Tron. Anon nodded, straightened himself and disappeared. Tron turned and walked downstairs; in front of the building there was a large group of Black Guards. They were almost explicitly hostile by then; once the protectors of safety in the city – now Tron was almost surprised that they did not attack him as he walked through them. The Guard was under Clu’s control and now they secured his position, they were behind his policies. That was one more thing Flynn had to take care of, once the viral attack would be investigated.

 

  Then it was all spinning, turning, striking down, and there were falling pixels under his discs – two discs, for the fallen Guard’s disc came to life in his hand as if it always belonged to him. And then the fight ended and he woke up as a different program. His new self, Rinzler was fighting on the Guards’ side, shoulder to shoulder with them – though he did go and did find out how Anon’s mission had ended. For some reason Rinzler felt relieved to learn that he had had a good death.

 

  Programs’ memory was not shaded by time and Black Guards were not the forgiving kind: they proved that right away when Tron first saw them after his reversion. With Rinzler’s coding gone, for them he was the same program, that had fought against Clu, that had killed many from their own. They did not assault him; that was against their directions Tron figured, yet they very obviously liked his suffering. Tron could not walk and they had to carry him; and there was not much he could do against the groping, against the gloved fingers that sank into his skin so deep that it hurt. His hand shot out to punch the Black Guard that was holding him – a laughable attempt against one of the strongest and fastest programs on the Grid. The guard simply turned his head away to avoid the clumsy, flailing hand and looked at Tron. The smooth surface of the black helmet hid the soldier’s expression. Another time, on one of the first flights back from the Palace the plane was about to leave the ramp and the crew was getting ready for the departure. The guard put Tron down; the prisoner was holding himself more or less composed until then, but he was so hurt and heartbroken that he curled up on his side on the floor of the aircraft and started sobbing. The noise of the engines filled the space and another sound; scornful laughter.

 

  He had to fight, that was not even a question, but all the attempts were cut short in a way that made him think twice before trying again. The update which gave Tron back the ability to walk did not make him strong or quick and yet he took the first chance and ran, without thinking. There was a moment, a drunk moment when he thought he would get away; and then the hit came. It was powerful enough to knock him over and send him sliding on the smooth floor. There were no quick footsteps following; they did not bother rushing, Tron realized. The programs in the hall which connected the aircraft pad and the reception room in the palace were quiet – some of them turned away, others were watching the show. Tron saw a pair of boots appearing before him and he glanced up. It was the warden; she was looking down at him with unreadable face; then she gestured at the guards to take the prisoner. Then Tron remembered Clu’s warning, that he would loose everything, had he tried to run. With great fear he was waiting for punishment, which never came: his attempt was so ridiculous that was apparently not reported.

 

  Fight, run, take action: he still wanted to do something… anything… but the instinct slowly ceased. He had always fought for the freedom, for the Users, for a greater good – but things were entirely different now. The system worked, for more than a thousand cycles by now, under Clu’s rule. Back in the days the MCP and his minions were suffocating the system, condemning programs to slow death; this Grid was alive, it evolved and survived. Now the enemy was _him_ : or was not it him, locked up in a cell and hurt, whenever they felt to do so? Clu and Sam Flynn both called him a traitor: and were not they right? Did not he love a User better than his fellow programs, did not he give up reason for Flynn? He did and it was not a real excuse, that most of the time Flynn ended up being right, that Tron trusted him enough to follow his strange instructions, knowing that everything was part of a bigger plan. Did not he want Flynn to spend more time on the Grid, did not he do his best to keep him there? He did and there were no regrets; he could have tried to apologize, but Alan-One had not taught him, how to lie.

 

  For some time Tron waited for something to happen; a miracle? Then the laughter which filled the ballroom when Sam presented him to the guests, deflated his hopes. And yes, there was an uprising, that he learnt about when it was all done and the execution scaffolds for the rebels had been erected. And Flynn was gone… After the great relief over his survival and escape Tron began to have hopes in his intervention, that Flynn would do something to help him. After some time the resignation and sadness returned. He was not bitter, he knew that Flynn would have come, had it depended on him – he knew the User enough, Tron told himself. Flynn did not come, because he could not come; that was all he had to know. The only thing he needed to do was to make a decision, whether he wanted to give up or to find that way out on his own.

 

 

 

 

V.

 

  He was watching the streets, as every time, when he had the chance, from the window of Sam’s suite. The program was learning the new layout of the city, the traffic, the route of the patrols and Recognizers. He had to be ready, so when the time came, he would find the shortest and safest way out to the Outlands. The quickest way, on foot, since his capability to ride a bike or pilot a plane was gone, erased. It was not a plan, because it could not be a plan.

 

_Everything you do or learn will be imprinted in this disc._

 

  He could not actually _know_ what he was doing yet; he had no way of knowing if Clu checked his disc time to time – and no way of predicting if he would have his own disc with him, when the opportunity came. Clu was careful not to let him out from the Throne Ship without his disc and even when he was in that room, Tron could not access his locked disc. For that it became part of the idea, to make Clu trust him enough, to make him confident and let Tron wear the disc and remove the code which put him asleep after a certain period of time.

 

  Tron looked in front of himself and took a glimpse of his own reflection on the window. He lifted his hand and touched the white dress unwittingly. It would be hard to escape in this outfit: people turned around and looked after Sirens on the streets. _Why that dress?_ Flynn had never explained the purpose of these programs and Tron had never asked him. Clu hated them; he seemed to understand something about them, about the reason behind their existence that Tron did not know. Flynn had created a hundred and twenty-seven of them: in a sense Clu just made that number square after Tron’s reversion.

 

  He felt a drop of liquid falling on his hand: he looked down. It was a teardrop… but Sirens never cried. They were probably false, double-faced, in a ridiculously weak body – but they were though in the inside. They did not drive themselves, because they did not need to: they could make anybody to take them anywhere, with a single gesture. The Sirens survived all the wars and clashes, for they knew how to look after themselves. And though Clu sent them to the Arena to work and used them as spies, nobody owed them; they did not have to spend their own time with someone, if they did not want to.

 

  Tron glanced back quickly. He thought he heard Sam coming. Slowly he turned back to the window. The focus was gone and the memories began to overwhelm him. Most of the time it started with the horrible, horrible names Sam called him – Tron did not even understand some of them, but the intent behind, the wish to cause pain was clear. Running away or pushing against the User would always result the same and he would end up tied to the bed. Hungry lips caressed his face, slid down on his neck and chest, tracing along his circuitry: a sad mockery of gentleness – but this was what the User liked and so it happened this way. He pressed his knees together instinctively, when he saw Sam reaching for a pillow and that made the boy snicker. He pushed the pillow under Tron’s hips and parted his legs easily. Sam’s face, his eyes were full of lust by then and that made him disturbingly similar to his father. Tron screamed, when he pushed in: a brutal sensation that he could never get used to, a sharp pain, which could be blunted, but could never be avoided.

 

  He turned his face away. He tried to focus on something else: the stormy sky outside of the window. It was so different now, the city outside, so enormous, mighty – they must have worked a lot on the updates. They should have done it together; the way Flynn had imagined it, to share those dreams with Sam one day. It was devastating, that it had been one of the options, friendship, happiness – that Sam Flynn could have been the best; and he became the worst. The program looked up. The User grabbed the headboard so that he could move harder and push in deeper; his muscles strained. Tron’s lower body was numb from the pain. His User… Was that true, did he belong now to this vengeful young man, who appeared not to know mercy? Probably yes, even if it was hard to imagine Alan-One to wish such fate to his creature, even if that program was a failure, a disappointment.

 

  Sam came with a loud cry. There was a moment of movelessness: then the User collapsed and buried his face in Tron’s neck. He fell asleep almost immediately. It happened so many times; it seemed to Tron, that he had been lying there forever, just to be torn to pieces, that his old self, which had been travelling around and interacting with others, had been an entirely different program. Things changed slowly, and those encounters were different too. The User seemed to be quieter, more careful. In the beginning, if Tron had not cried loud enough, then Sam had made him to do so – that was over as well. Sometimes, when the program woke up, he found Sam awake in the darkness; the User was lying next to him, looking at the window, deep in his thoughts – other times his head was resting on Tron’s chest and his wary fingers were tracing the program’s exposed circuits.

 

  Heartbeats. A thing Tron could never get used to: that intense, deep thumping against his own skin. He used to smile, when he felt that, out there in one of the hideouts, in the silence in one of those forgotten rooms. He would put his arms around Flynn, even if half asleep, and he would feel those small, sweet kisses on his face. His lover’s erection would be hot and hard against his thighs: a function so alien for a program – but it was alright, he could take this. His own cry would be induced by the mixture of pain and pleasure: it hurt, because his body was not designed for this and he enjoyed it, because he felt his lover’s cautiousness which was to ease the suffering. The initial discomfort ceased and Flynn began to move; his lips were pressed against Tron’s neck and his hands caressed the most sensitive circuits. The program’s legs were wrapped around his hips, urging the User to speed up the rhythm and smiling at the joyful cry that came as a reply. His own enjoyment came from the gentle treatment and from the simple knowledge that he was providing his lover with great pleasure.

 

  “Please,” he whispered, just to be silenced with an eager kiss. His arms felt heavy: why he could not move them? But they had gone too far by then; his back arched against the sheets and his lover was pounding into him so hard, so perfect that tears began to stream down on his face. Hot come filled him down there and Tron reached his climax right after. It seemed like an eternity, by the time his mind cleared up enough to move, to open his eyes.

 

  It was dark; his circuitry was burning with an intense, violet light. The User was still inside him and the program’s legs were still wrapped around him tightly. Tron looked up at him: Sam was still flushed and there were tears in his eyes. The program gasped. He knew now, why he was unable to move: his arms were handcuffed to the bed above his head. His circuits turned to white from the shock and the shame. His legs released Sam immediately, but the User did not move. Tron turned his face away. Finally he felt Sam pulling out slowly, carefully; the boy lay down on the bed and was fast asleep shortly after. Tron stayed there, wide awake, staring into the dimness.

 

 

VI.

 

  There was a break in the Arena: between the attractions there was a light show entertaining the crowd; many of the programs left their seats and went out for a talk and a drink. Tron stood at the window with a faint smile: now, that the decision had been made, the pleasant expression was plastered over him all the time. He would escape and he would succeed – or he was going to die trying.

 

  He looked back above his shoulder. Clu was sitting there with his data pad. Now, that Tron did not give him hard time in public, the system administrator seemed to be comfortable with bringing him out; he was actually pleased to show up with Tron on his side. That was exactly what Tron wanted from him, to feel confident about him. He turned back at the window.

 

  There was no other option left for him, but to run; otherwise they would get him, very soon now. He felt it not just because of Sam, but because of what he saw everywhere. In a working system, in a generally stable one there was no reason to expect any fundamental changes; meaning that the power relations would stay the same… his situation would stay the same. And he would give up, he would be theirs – it was already happening. Not long before he was watching Clu sleeping in the room of the Throne Ship and Tron knew that Clu won. He also knew that there could be no such turn of events that could give back his freedom; he would never walk free, never stand on a rooftop to overlook the world again – he would never compete down in the Arena once more. And surely, that was a way of life too; he would be taken care and even loved too… Loved… He just had to forget that he had ever had an own will, that he could ever choose whom to love. He shook his head lightly. He was going to run, soon now – he just had to wait for the opportunity and get ready. He had to lure Clu to let him keep his disc and let him stay awake without the constant shut downs. Could he do that? Could he?

 

  Tron looked at his own reflection once more. He recognized his blank smile: it was the expression of a Siren. _Give them what they want_. He saw that Clu put down his data pad. Tron turned around and walked to him: he sat in Clu’s lap without being told so. He saw the pleasant surprise on Clu’s face; one arm went around his waist and another gloved hand came to rest on his thigh. He could not move even if he wanted – but he did not want to. He wrapped his arms around Clu’s neck: the system administrator lifted his head with silent expectation. And Tron wanted, he dearly wanted to be in possession of his old strength just for a moment, so that he could punch Clu in the face and wipe off that complacent smile from the system administrator’s face. Instead he smiled sweetly and kissed Clu on the lips.

 

_Soon._


	13. StarWaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a few minutes Sam found what he was looking for and he sat down on the carpet. It was his old Tron action figure. He had not held it in his hand since years; and during the move he had just swept it into the carton box with an angry motion. Now he remembered all his childish ideas and dreams about the fantasy world which had been so real for his young self. Great empires, fight, high-speed chase in the digital canyons, depicted by Flynn so vividly… And friendship, the kind that people only find in tales or when they are very young. If Sam had ever missed his father during all those years – and he had missed him dearly – then he had missed this just the same, the dream of this foreign land. He looked down at the doll. It would not light up anymore and the limbs were rigid to move. It was broken – Sam broke it. But could it be fixed? Could things be mended, to put in another way? It would have been hard, if not impossible with a human; people did not forget. But programs – their memories were different and it took only a moment to delete or modify them.

I.

 

  “What’s next?” asked Alan Bradley. Sam glanced up; confused for a short moment, for it had been only a few hours that somebody else had asked him the same question in a very different looking office. Now they were seated in the spacey conference room; glasses, water bottles and note pads were lying on the long table. Most of the people had left after the meeting, only a few of them were still sitting there, talking on their cell phones or making notes on their tablets. On the large screen on the wall the numbers which had made the participants of the conference cheer and applaud, were still glowing.

 

  “Are you asking me if I have more ideas that would give another nervous breakdown to the shareholders?” asked Sam absentmindedly. Alan smiled.

 

  “I am quite sure that the way how things worked out at the end, made them forget the initial scare,” he said. He smiled, but the expression was strange, insincere. Sam knew the reason: they lost each other, somewhere on the way, for all the secrets, for the obvious disingenuousness. They were still friends, of course, but this was rather something how Sam imagined the friendship between his father and Alan, before Flynn’s disappearance.

 

  “What about a filter machine which would synthesize drinking water from sea water and drainage?” asked Sam and those were the same words he had told Clu not long before. Back there, in the busy room of the administration building Clu just nodded: he was so sure about the system, about the capabilities of their engineers, that he was certain about the outcome of the new venture. Sam knew that this challenge would be tougher than his first request had been and that it would be difficult for programs, maybe even for Clu to understand the task itself. But it was not Clu, who was taken aback by the idea – it was Alan. Sam laughed quietly. Something was missing and now he recognized, what: Junior, who had always been around him since the release of the first ENCOM gadget, asking questions and sniffing, had left right after the meeting. Sam remembered, Junior had not even looked at him during the meeting, he had not asked a single question. Something was wrong; Sam just could not tell yet, what.

 

  “Oh,” said Alan. There was no real surprise, no stunned questions like at the first time; by now Alan Bradley knew that those were not empty promises. Yet the secrecy, the lack of confidence made even this moment bitter; Alan should have been proud and happy – instead he gave Sam a rather worried look, collected his belongings and stood up. Sam stayed; he was looking at the screen without actually seeing the numbers. Had he never come up with another invention, it would not have changed anything: the ENCOM plug itself had generated more profit for the company than all their programs and softwares ever released since the establishment of ENCOM. Nobody could ever question his position; and that was just part of the whole picture. He just had to step out to the street to see how the color of the sky was altering, from the shade he had known since his childhood, to a lighter one, as the smog was clearing up from the air. It was enough to read the news to see how the international relations changed because of the decreasing oil consumption: and Sam did look up at the sky, he did read the news, just to realize that he did not care anymore. Or he did; he did want those positive changes, he still intended to use the company, utilizing its resources the way it had never been before. He still wanted to better the world; he just did not feel connected to it anymore.

 

  He was still deep in his thoughts when he left his office a few hours later. They would work, he thought, once on the Grid, and he would sleep… It was Monday and Sam was exhausted, because he had not been in the system since two days and he had hard time sleeping in his bed in his own apartment. It was because of the sounds, he told himself first, because he had gotten used to the constant noise of the system and it was too quiet in the city apartment – but then he decided not to fool himself; he was tossing and turning in his bed, because he was alone.

 

  The underground parking garage was almost empty when he left; the security gate opened when his car approached. A dark Tahoe; his bike needed some repairs for what he could not find time and Sam used this company vehicle now. He felt more and more relieved as he was driving: just one more hour and he would be back to the office, back to the server room… back home. He felt so lightheaded and happy that he decided to stop at a nearby place for a drink. Many ENCOM employees frequented the spot, they went there for lunch and after work; his old reluctance usually kept Sam away from there. Then, it was just a drink and it did not matter anyway. He stopped the car in the parking lot. A message came to his cell phone and Sam picked up the device to read the text before exiting the car. He reached for the door opener and his hand stopped in the middle of the motion. He saw Junior in front of the entrance, hand in hand with the ISO. They were talking and smiling at each other; their gestures and mimics implied that they were in an established relationship.

 

  Sam was sitting there silently, with his phone still in his hand. He was very focused now. Junior had stopped asking, because he had had the answers: the ISO told him about the Grid. Sam knew that without a doubt. Did Flynn know about this? Was this the part of a plan? The laughing couple entered the building and disappeared from sight. Sam reached for the key and started the car.

 

 

II.

 

  He was sleeping at last.  The troubles of the other world faded away in the moment when the laser turned on and the darkness engulfed him. He had known, Sam realized as he was falling, his father had known about the trap just the same, and yet he had been unable to avoid it. That thought made him want to give up for a moment, to stop the refusal and relentlessness – then he remembered the scene he had seen not long before, the ISO and Dillinger Jr. together. The anger and the sense of new betrayal swept the idea away. He felt the very present danger, but then; what could Junior do? Had someone tried to access the system, they should have broken through locked doors and passwords; and Junior was not a criminal, much less a violent thug. Yet the discovery left Sam with the renewed impression that he could not trust any of them, that all the people around him had an agenda: and so he just pushed the button and let the troubles go as his physical body dissolved.

 

  Sam turned in the bed. It was dark, except for some light from the outside that came in through the large window and Tron’s circuitry. The program was sleeping deep, with his wrists tied up. A few days before Sam woke up with a sudden twitch and his shaky hands grabbed the wrinkled sheets on the empty bed. A hoarse cry tore from his throat and Sam jumped on his feet. The lights turned on and he spotted Tron: the program was sitting on the floor, next to the window. Tron turned quickly and looked up in dread of the sudden outburst. Sam rushed there, his brain still clouded; he saw the fear in the program’s eyes. Tron had seen him at his worst before, but this time he had no way of knowing the reason behind the angry yelling and that must have made him terrified. He was shaking lightly while his hands got tied to the headboard of the bed; then he became still, almost calm, when Sam simply lay down next to him and turned the lights down. It was like that since then: he did not have to wake up alone again. He blinked and looked at the sleeping program in the dimness. How much time had passed in the system since his, Sam’s arrival? It must have been decades. A human being would have given it up long time ago; nobody would have taken even part of that suffering. Sam was thinking about his father, at his new estate, with his new company… with his new family. Flynn did not deserve this sacrifice; he did not deserve such loyalty. And nobody loved Sam like that, without conditions, without asking for anything in return – there was not a single person in his life that did not expect something, money, opportunities or at least courtesy for being there. Now he knew that; a very late understanding, which stopped the insults that spilled from his lips so easily, held back his hand, which had used to reach out to hurt so quickly.

 

  He touched Tron’s face lightly. The program had gotten used to him and did not wake up from the gentle stroke. Sam turned in a slow motion and settled quietly, carefully. His head rested against the program’s chest; he heard the quiet, static rumble under the skin. His lips traced along the intricate circuitry, which pulsed with a peaceful, pale blue light. Tron’s hands strained against the handcuffs, but the program was still asleep. Sam lifted himself; his erection was throbbing uncomfortably already and it made him impatient – yet he held himself back for now. He should have stopped, he told himself while he kissed the smooth skin and his hands trailed down on Tron’s sides, he should have stopped at the very beginning, or if he had not been wise enough at that time, then later, when he had realized that he had been wrong. But it was too late: too late to stop, too late to quit or make amends; and it was strange to see that he had to come here, this foreign land, unknown to the most, to figure that there was nothing to link him to his own world – to feel as if he was home for the first time.

 

  He pulled up Tron’s legs and looked down. Tron was lying under him quietly; he still seemed to be dazed, half-asleep. There was no fight, just a soft whimper when Sam pushed in and began to move slowly. He closed his eyes and buried his face in Tron’s neck; his hands were still caressing the pulsing circuits. It was good; it was so good that it made him forget all the problems he had left behind. Coming down here, almost every weekday and spending the time in the system – Sam had thought that he was just giving himself some extra time to work and rest, but there was more. Days, added to every single day in his own world; plenty to rest, plenty to work – but at the end he spent more time on the Grid than in the real world. By the time he figured what was happening, he felt alienated… by that time he fell.

 

  He opened his eyes and noticed the light immediately. It was intense, violet; something he had never seen before. Sam lifted himself without ceasing to move. Tron was whimpering quietly under him. All the program’s circuits were burning with that bright, violet light. Tron’s eyes were half-lidded: he was not looking at Sam and from his dazed expression the boy knew that he was not fully conscious. First he was angry and he wanted to shake Tron awake; then he did not do that. He felt a weak grip around his hips; long legs wrapped around him, urging him to push in deeper. He groaned from the pleasure and started to move harder, quicker. Tron was making quiet, broken sounds and Sam could not take his eyes off of him. The program was always the same, breathtakingly beautiful and youthful looking, but his eyes, the way he looked, serious and considering, revealed his real nature, his real age. Now, that he was writhing under Sam, his face was glowing and he seemed to be… happy.

 

  Sam was moving hard, out of breath. He remembered how this had always been, always before he had first set foot on the Grid: that he had been always wanted and welcomed; it had never been about force. He felt accepted, even if this moment was not real, stolen – he felt loved, the way it was always supposed to be. That grip around him was weak, but he knew that the program was clutching onto him with his full strength; that his arms would be around Sam’s neck, had he been not bound.

 

  “Please,” whispered Tron; Sam bent down and kissed him hungrily. It felt real – and it was real for him, and his kisses were returned for the first time ever. He did not want to finish, he did not want to come, not yet; then he remembered something. The program was not aroused, not the way a human being would have been – Tron’s back arched against the bed and he was whimpering quietly. It was all about service, all about Sam; he enjoyed the intercourse, because the User enjoyed it. Sam let go; he cried out as he came. Tron’s circuits made a blinding flash and his legs tightened around Sam once more. His climax took much longer than it would have taken for a human: the boy was staring at him while it lasted. Just then Sam noticed that his own eyes were full of tears.

 

  Tron’s eyes slowly opened. He looked up at Sam, awake now; his circuitry turned white immediately. The boy saw the shock on his face and the program’s legs released him. Sam pulled out without a word and lay down. He fell asleep fast, with his heart pounding, relieved.

 

 

III.

 

  “You look tired,” said Lora Baines. “Are you fine?

 

  “Sure,” he replied immediately. They were standing on the porch at Lora’s and Alan’s house, with tea cups in their hands. “Do you know why he asked me to come?”

 

  Lora seemed to be hurt by the question and Sam knew why: because there had to be a reason for him to come, for he had to be asked to stop by.

 

  “No,” she said. “Well, maybe I do. He is coming from Flynn.”

 

  “Oh,” said Sam. “Probably there is another lawsuit on the way.”

 

  “Sam…” she sighed. “This is not going to work, you know that too.”

 

  “Hm?”

 

  “You need to stop fighting.”

 

  The boy turned at her.

 

  “I thought you were on my side,” he said.

 

  “I am on your side,” she replied. “I haven’t talked to him since his return and I don’t even know when I will be able to look in his eyes again. He was wrong, so wrong… But this needs to stop. Not for the company… There are days when I wish that company never came to life at all. But because of yourself.”

 

  Sam remained silent.

 

  “I know that something is going on in the background,” she continued. “You take back the company, reinstate Alan, come up with an amazing product, which has nothing to do with computers and at the same time your father comes back… This is not a coincidence.”

 

  Sam’s expression hardened, but he still did not speak.

 

  “You don’t have to offer explanations,” said Lora. “Not to me. But be honest with yourself, even if with nobody else. It is you who is going down here. I am not saying not to fight for your rights and dues, but sooner or later you will have to start talking to him. And again, not for his sake, but for your own.”

 

  A vehicle approached and stopped on the street. Much to his relief Sam recognized Alan’s car. They went inside and sat down in the living room. Lora did not join them; through the window Sam saw her picking leaves from the lawn in the darkening garden.

 

  “He should stop using you as his ambassador,” he said and put down his tea cup.

 

  “I am not particularly happy about it either,” replied Alan. “But for now, I am willing to deal with this.”

 

  “What does he want now?”

 

  “He wants you to know that there might be a huge mix-up around his company next week. On a level that it could affect ENCOM. He says you would want to get our PR team ready for this.”

 

  “And what is that important thing that is going to happen?”

 

  “They have made some great progress in their research,” replied Alan carefully. “So great that it actually raised questions in higher circles. Flynn is going to Washington to meet people. If they agree on the terms, they will have support from the government for the further work. It is very important for him, for them. There will be a great deal of media publicity around the company in the next few days.”

 

  “Nice. And what is that great progress?” asked Sam. “You seem to be avoiding it.”

 

  “Because you are getting upset. You are getting upset about everything that has anything to do with your father.”

 

  Sam opened his lips for a vitriolic reply, and then he remained silent.

 

  “They found the cure for cancer,” said Alan. He looked at Sam. “It is working. They are already testing it on volunteers, people that were dying and had nothing to lose. And it cures everybody, Sam. The word went out and that is why they are eager to see him in Washington. Flynn is adamant that their products should be available for everybody, regardless of their financial situation and if they have insurance or not. But healthcare is a huge business; many people would want it to stay the way it is now.”

 

  Sam managed to stay calm, until they said their goodbyes and he got in his car. There he picked up his phone and dialed his father’s number, for the first time ever.

 

  “Do they know,” he yelled, when they picked up the line on the other side, “That you are giving them ISO piss?”

 

  There was a momentary silence on the phone.

 

  “Should you or a loved one suffer,” Flynn said slowly, “you would want that ISO piss too.”

 

  Sam wanted to scream, to argue – and then found himself speechless with the phone in his hand. He remembered seeing his father on the Grid for the first time, Flynn, choosing the ISO when leaving, and then, Junior with the girl.

 

  “Sam?” he heard his father’s voice from the phone. _What kind of man is this?_ He had nothing to do with this person anymore – Sam had never been more certain about that. He ended the call and put away the phone.

 

  He noticed the car which was following him when he got to downtown. Sam had seen it when left Alan’s neighborhood and then spotted it again after he exited the freeway. It was a dark sedan with smoky windows. On the way home he made a few unnecessary turns; the sedan kept the distance, but it was there, a few hundred yards behind him all the time. Sam made a note of the license plate and then drove to the underground parking garage of his apartment building. The other car sped up and disappeared in the evening traffic.

 

 

III.

 

  “They like it,” she said. “They better do.”

 

  Sam looked at her. Jayden’s face was serious and her tone was not sarcastic, yet he felt the slightest irony when she spoke. Just a moment before Sam asked the warden if the newer programs, his creations had accommodated well and liked the system. The reports which he was given every time when he arrived indicated the same: a society without struggles and without real tensions. All those reports: all the numbers and statistics – but Sam barely talked to the residents. He had never asked the same question from Jayden, he never questioned her about how it had felt to break into the ENCOM system and then to be installed here.

 

  “Have you ever been outside?” he asked Jayden.

 

  “When it was needed,” she replied, and Sam understood that she was referring to the uprising. He knew nothing about his creature, he realized: he knew more about his secretary at ENCOM than about the warden – but it was Jayden, who risked her life for him without thinking twice.

 

  “Aren’t you interested?” asked Sam. “Don’t you want to see it for yourself? Don’t you want to watch the games?”

 

  For the first time ever, Jayden appeared to be slightly confused.

 

  “I don’t know,” she said hesitantly.

 

  “Fine,” said Sam with a smile. “Then I order you to go and take a look around for me.”

 

  “Alright,” replied Jayden. Sam forgot about the conversation and remembered it only a few days later, when the warden was submitting another report.

 

  “Did you go?” he asked. Jayden glanced away quickly and then back at the User.

 

  “Yes,” she said. “It was really colorful and I enjoyed it. The city is safe and your people are content. Thank you.”

 

  She was telling the truth, Sam knew that; but something was wrong. It could not be about the system, she would have reported any kind of problem immediately – it was something else and she chose to keep quiet about it. Sam reached out quietly in an expectant motion. Jayden removed her own disc and handed it to the User. Her expression was strange; there was something on Jayden’s face that Sam had never seen from her.

 

  He opened the memory files and browsed through the recordings. He found the relevant memories rapidly, as it was Jayden’s only trip outside of the Palace. He saw her riding on a bike on the city streets, entering a club and walking around. Then she went to the Arena: the warden tried to keep a low profile, but she was recognized at the main gate. One of the masters of ceremonies rushed there and escorted Jayden to a large reception hall upstairs. High-ranked programs gathered there and were chatting with drinks in their hands. Soon after an aircraft landed outside on a platform which was attached to the Arena. Guards entered the room and made space for the arriving guests. It was Clu, Sam knew that before he actually saw the system administrator on the recording; but he did not expect that other program that showed up on Clu’s side. Tron was standing there with a phlegmatic smile on his face – an expression Sam realized that he had first seen when he had been transported to the armory during his very first visit to the Grid: the expression of a Siren. Clu’s hand rested on Tron’s waist possessively; the system administrator was looking at the crowd complacently as the loud applause welcomed him. Then Clu spotted Jayden; after the initial surprise Clu began to smile widely and raised his glass to the warden. Jayden bowed reverently; the crowd gave her a big hand as well. The sound of the applause still filled the room when Clu turned to Tron and kissed him on the lips deeply.

 

  Sam closed the disc without saying a word. His heart was heavy. Of course it was a message: Clu had known that Sam would see what Jayden had seen. But then, was it a surprise? Had not Clu been straightforward from the beginning? Sam handed the disc to Jayden and the warden took it silently. Then, only then Sam understood her expression: Jayden was sorry for him, for her User. The realization hit him hard: that Jayden knew how he felt, she knew why seeing the recording would hurt him; that she knew what Sam was not willing to admit even to himself.

 

  He turned and walked out from the room. He went to his own suite without looking at anybody in the halls. It was dark up there when he entered the room; Sam put his hand on the wall before the lights would have turned on upon his arrival. The music was still on; it was playing from a disc which he had gotten as a gift from one of the artists in the city – and the data disc was amongst the pile of other presents which had arrived to the Palace. There were other gifts in his suite as well: light sculptures, a whole shelf of music and video files, filled with the creation of programs, art, which was meant to please him. His favorite was a box, which projected light play around: it was capable to display very intricate figures, but Sam liked the best when it painted tiny light dots on the walls and the ceiling – stars, rotating slowly, in an empire which did not know the real sky, invented by a program, which would never see a star in the User world. The box was turned on now and the stars, this distant universe was glowing in the dark all around the room.

 

  Sam looked down at the bed. Tron was sleeping under the thin blanket. His circuitry was pulsing with a pale glow, in consonance with the soft music as the program was unconsciously enjoying the melody. He knew, Sam was thinking, Clu knew that this would happen: and had not the system administrator warned him? Clu had seen one User falling – he must have known human nature well enough to foresee that Sam would not be smarter either. But Sam insisted; and Clu was not like Alan Bradley or the rest of Sam’s benevolent friends – Clu let him learn the hard way. And why would not he? Clu could not reprogram Tron again, he could not make him obey that easily – but he could give Tron to Sam. And whatever suffering Tron had gone through in the young User’s hands, that slowly made the program abandon his faith in Users; it got him giving up waiting for Kevin Flynn. Two nights before Sam came home exhausted and found Tron pacing the suite up and down; that was right after their dubious encounter. The program was fiery, combative: he snarled at Sam when the boy entered the room. He sprung on his heels when Sam got closer to him and attempted to run. A horrible cry tore from his lips when Sam grabbed him; then the boy saw a bright red flash of light. He let the program go immediately and turned around quickly to see the source of the light; he was searching for a possible threat in the suite. It took him a long moment to realize that the red flash had come from Tron’s circuits. Tron had run to the corner when Sam had released him and now he was sitting there, huddled up. The color of his circuitry had changed back to light blue already – or was it a shade darker now than it had been originally? Tron seemed to be devastated, but determined: the expression of someone, who had been stripped off of the last bit of his hopes. 

 

  Sam walked away from the bed quietly. At the wall he slid down slowly and sat down on the floor in the darkness. _Run, run,_ a voice in his mind was yelling, urging him to escape before it was too late – but it was too late already. He lifted his face. _Everything you ever knew seems to slowly be forgotten. All the good nights are just nights, all the good mornings are just mornings, all the dots in the sky are the same dots you've been looking at all your life.*_ Sam felt the tears streaming down on his cheeks as he was watching the projected constellations.

 

 

IV.

 

  The car came to a stop in the parking lot. It was getting dark outside: the surroundings of the brightly lit club were busy. It was Saturday evening and Sam came here to meet some friends – even though his attempts to socialize had become more and more awkward, he was still trying. He took a last look at the paper sheet on the passenger seat before leaving the car. It was the report on the sedan which had followed him the other day. It was registered on the name of a private security company. That was disturbing – but it was relieving as well at the same time, for Sam had been afraid that his father or his company had been behind the surveillance. It was still possible, still an option: but he was hoping to learn that Flynn was not involved in the monitoring. Sam did not really think about the other options; it could be anybody as ENCOM had made so many people nervous and mad.

 

  They talked, laughed and had some drinks – it was not bad at all, it was almost as it had used to be. Their group – a few young executives – was seated next to the table of young women. Sam saw some of his friends exchanging words with them and he heard the women’s laughter, but he sat far from them and was not involved in the conversation. He began to get ready to leave when the first member of their party started: he rather enjoyed the evening and he meant to go before it would go down. The goodbyes took quite a while; then they finally left. Sam’s friend jumped in a cab immediately, while Sam started to walk toward the parking lot. There was a woman standing in front of the entrance: she looked rather lost.

 

  She was still there when Sam drove out from the parking place; she was hugging herself and was turning her head around. It was not cold outside and she could have just taken a cab – she waited for somebody to offer her a ride. He stopped and leant over the passenger seat.

 

  “Need a lift?” he asked from the girl. She nodded and opened the door on the passenger side immediately. Sam recognized her face when she got in the car: she had been sitting at the next table with the other girls. She had probably left when Sam had begun to leave – and now Sam wondered if her own car was in the parking lot too and the next day she would have to come back to pick it up.

 

  “Thank you,” she said with a bright smile. She said her address, which was close by, at the campus area.

 

  “Alright,” he said and started the car. She was talking; about the traffic, about the place they had just left.

 

  “I’ve seen you there before,” she said. She was still smiling: young, very attractive, certainly from a well-off family – he had used to spend a lot of time with women like her. Now he was looking at the street. He was mildly offended by the trick, for this was the sort of behavior which made him drift away from this world, toward the Grid. Lying, cheating, making up things – and for what? Sam was staring at the traffic signs stiffly as he was driving. She was still talking, but he could not pay attention. For what? All those efforts and shiftiness for what? For better opportunities, better jobs, to catch more attractive partners; he felt sick. And then the days that would spiral into months and then to years and the boredom and unaffectedness would poison life: would not be there better jobs, more attractive people out there all the time? But it would be all settled by then, bound to somebody that would have left, had there been anyone more appealing, with kids, a job and a mortgage. No great plans, no ambitious dreams anymore, just the circle of this slyness, the circle of years into the old age, into illness and then death, death, death… This was why Sam did not want to belong here anymore, this was why he wanted programs around himself instead of people, and this was why he wanted that other kind of love, which did not come with conditions.

 

  The car stopped in front of the apartment building. People were standing and talking there, one of them was holding the gate open.

 

  “Do you want to come in for a coffee?” she asked. Sam looked at her and saw that she had wiped off her lipstick during the ride. She must have thought that they would be kissing later.

 

  “You have a good night,” he said. Her face froze from the disappointment for a moment and then she smiled again. Sure, thought Sam: there would be always another chance, another interesting applicant to go for.

 

  He went home. After returning from a walk with Marv he began to search in the boxes that he had used for the moving. Some of those had never gotten unpacked; the ones with the old, vintage ornaments from the river house and his old toys. After a few minutes Sam found what he was looking for and he sat down on the carpet. It was his old Tron action figure. He had not held it in his hand since years; and during the move he had just swept it into the carton box with an angry motion. Now he remembered all his childish ideas and dreams about the fantasy world which had been so real for his young self. Great empires, fight, high-speed chase in the digital canyons, depicted by Flynn so vividly… And friendship, the kind that people only find in tales or when they are very young. If Sam had ever missed his father during all those years – and he had missed him dearly – then he had missed this just the same, the dream of this foreign land. He looked down at the doll. It would not light up anymore and the limbs were rigid to move. It was broken – Sam broke it. But could it be fixed? Could things be mended, to put in another way? It would have been hard, if not impossible with a human; people did not forget. But programs – their memories were different and it took only a moment to delete or modify them.

 

  He was sitting there for long and when he emerged he took the figure with himself. Outside the wind was strong now and the clouds above the dark skyline reminded Sam of the Grid. He took a shower and went to the bed. His eyelids were heavy and he was falling asleep rapidly, with the action figure resting in his hand.

 

 

V.

 

  Water. The element had nothing common with the dark mass of the Sea of Simulation: the sea had only the appearance of liquid – in reality it was something very different. Data, unused information and more: once it had acted on its own, giving birth to the ISO population, almost as if the system had had an own will. Water was something else and it was stunning that the engineers had an idea about it by the time Sam first talked to them; it was pleasantly surprising to learn that Clu had already told them enough to prepare them for the new challenge. Now all the technicians would start to work: and for them it would be for the glory, for presenting the sketches, for assembling the prototype for the first – and to hear from Sam that it worked in the User world.

 

  It was always about the glory: the group of programs that had actually invented the first ENCOM gadget was now amongst the most respected residents of the system. It was such a long-standing policy, to hate the Users, to refuse Flynn’s idea which had put the well-being of one front of the survival of the rest – it never changed the way how programs looked at Sam when he was walking through them.

 

  He was making his way across the exhibition room with a glass in his hand. There was a large crowd: programs were watching the sculptures on view, they were talking and walking around. After the sudden silence upon Sam’s arrival they acted naturally, or at least tried to. He was looking around with pleasant weariness in his bones. He stopped before a sculpture: it was an exceptionally fine piece, made from some transparent material and it was glowing from the inside. Sam reached out and touched it curiously; from the corner of his eye he saw that an extravagant looking program with white circuitry approached him and was staring at him silently. Other programs gathered around them as well: they wanted to see the piece of art which piqued the User’s interest. The surface of the sculpture was warm, the touch of it was similar to plastic. _Would he like it_ , Sam was thinking, _would he look at it if I gave it to him?_ His fingers clenched around the sculpture so forcefully that it cracked.

 

  “You don’t like it, Sire?” the program next to him asked desperately, close to tears. How devastating it would be for the artist, thought Sam, had the word gone out – that Sam hated his work so badly that he chose to destroy it with his own hand.

 

  “I like it a lot,” he whispered. Somebody let out a relieved laugh.

 

  “Would you accept it, Sire?” asked the sculptor, now with real tears in his eyes. “Let me fix it quickly and I will deliver it myself.”

 

  He went home. The Palace was always busy, full of people coming and going – but it went quiet once the doors of the elevator closed. The guards in the hall were silent, motionless: and Sam would have hesitated before entering the suite, had he been alone in the wide anteroom.

 

  Tron was lying on the bed, curled up on his side. He was holding a pillow close to his chest; he did not stir when Sam arrived. He did not look at the User; and Sam suddenly remembered how Tron had looked at him for the first time, the adoration on his face. If he could get that back… Could he? He knew what he had to do in order to get that, he just did not make up his mind about it yet.

 

  His head rested against the white suit on the program’s chest. Tron’s face was stone-cold: Sam could hold him in his arms, could tear him to pieces – he could do whatever he wished, but could not change that expression, he could not get a smile ever again. His fingers sank into the program’s sides through the silver-white dress.

 

  “Hold me,” said Sam quietly. Tron’s eyes widened and the program stayed motionless. Sam shook him lightly. “Do it and I will not touch you… for now.”

 

  He felt the careful hands on his back almost immediately. Sam closed his eyes. Those hands caressed his shoulders and the back of his head. The touch was not sensual by any means; it was gentle and comforting. Great tranquility descended on him and Sam fell asleep promptly.

 

  It was dark and hot in the suite when he woke up. He licked his lips. He felt calm and rested; only his eyes were burning mildly: he must have cried while asleep. His head was still resting on Tron’s chest and the program’s arms were on the User’s shoulders; Tron was sleeping silently under him. Sam wanted to stay like that forever, in the darkness and silence. Then the urge made him move and that woke up Tron as well. Sam heard his gasp when the program realized that the moments of mercy were gone. Sam took Tron’s hand and brought it to his own crotch. He leant ahead and kissed Tron on the lips hard while he was rubbing the program’s hand against his throbbing erection. It did not take long for him to come; he groaned into the kiss and he collapsed.

 

  Tron was motionless; his eyes were glowing in a silent disbelief that he got away easily for the first time ever. This, thought Sam, this would be gone too once he would delete the program’s memories. He was ready for that now. Without those files Tron would not remember what had happened between them; he would not remember Sam at all. The rest – the rest would be taken care by the program’s own loyal and affectionate nature. Sam could not do that without asking for Clu’s permission, but he was quite sure, that he could get the approval. He looked down and remembered once more, of his childish dreams of some miraculous empires. He was a human and he could forget –Tron was a program and he had to forget, because that was Sam’s decision.

 

 

VI.

 

  It was Friday. Sam arrived to work late: he planned to work until the evening. Usually he was in the office by 9.30 in the morning, by the time his father called. He always heard the ringing in his office: his secretary would pick up the receiver and would tell Flynn that Sam was not in the office. His father would say thank you and they would hang up. It was a little ritual at every morning and Sam was actually stunned when the phone did not ring on Thursday. Then he remembered what Alan had told him: that Flynn had gone to Washington and would not be back before Saturday.

 

  Most people took off from work after the meeting in the afternoon and Sam saw Alan leaving for a late business lunch as well. He also went home to take out Marv. He would remember the details of that day later rather vividly, when he would be looking for the signs or if there was anything he could have done to prevent the later events. It was getting dark when he returned to the ENCOM building and after a short stop in his office he went to the server room.

 

  He went over Jayden’s reports: seeing the warden on the top of the stairs with that faint smile on her face was another thing that would be haunting Sam for long later, because that was the last time that he saw her alive. He went upstairs before leaving for work; Tron turned and looked at him with wondering face. He probably sensed the boy’s changed mood and that Sam had plans for him. He turned back at the window. Sam walked there and stepped behind the program. He wrapped his arms around Tron and leant his forehead on the program’s shoulder. None of them moved for a while and when Sam lifted his face he saw that Tron was looking at his reflection on the surface of the window. Tron’s face was curious; the reflection of his peacefully pulsing circuitry was painted across the dark view of the city. And that would be how Sam would remember him later, regretting bitterly that he did not turn Tron around and did not kiss him before leaving.

 

  They met with Clu close to a new construction site. A few guards were standing around and the sounds of work came from the direction of the building crew. Clu was relaxed; different from the sullen program that Sam had met for the first time. During the times Clu had acquired some dark humor which made him more similar to Kevin Flynn. Sam was not sure how he felt about that change.

 

  “We need more people here,” said the system administrator. Sam nodded, but he could not answer. There was the sound of thunder and they all looked up. An aircraft appeared on the sky, out of thin air. Sam was so surprised that he was just standing there, speechless. Clu reacted quicker: he gestured at the guards.

 

  “Who is the other User?” asked Clu.

 

  “There is no other User,” said Sam. He recognized the ship; it was similar to how the hard drive he had used to import new programs, had looked from inside the Grid. Somebody had attached a hard drive to the computer from the outside – but nobody was supposed to be in the server room, lest to have access to the system. “Somebody broke in.”

 

  Clu nodded. The guards were waiting for instructions and Sam saw a few aircrafts leaving from the city, toward the intruder.

 

  “You need to leave,” said Clu. Sam understood him immediately: once leading a coup against a User, the system administrator knew that there was no issue that could not be fixed from the outside with a keystroke – and that there was no bigger danger for Sam than to get trapped inside of the system. Sam tapped the coding of the Grid: the closest portal devices began to glow with a light which was visible only for him. He thought there would be no device close to this newly inhabited area, but then he saw the glow a few hundred yards away.

 

  “Once I am out,” he said, with the device in his hand, “close down the system with the password. I will find out what’s happening and I will disconnect the hard drive. I will restart the system once the threat is gone.”

 

  Clu nodded and stepped back in order to avoid getting picked up by the energy waves of the portal. Sam turned the device on – and nothing happened. Sam tried once more, to no avail. He tapped the system again and examined the codes.

 

  “All the portal devices are blocked from the outside,” he said. “Whoever has hacked the system, made sure that I can not get out.”

 

  Clu turned at the closest administrator program and gave him a few quick instructions. Sam was staring at the ship, which was descending slowly. The system administrator came back to him.

 

  “It is Junior,” said Sam, rather to himself than to Clu. “He is trying to take over the Grid.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *poetry by Garrett Hedlund


	14. The Fall 1./3.

I.

 

  The car was making its way through the evening traffic toward downtown. The sky was dark already, with a wide golden brim along the horizon where the sun had disappeared not long before. The streets were packed and the sidewalks were full of people, talking, lining up in front of clubs, arriving to or leaving restaurants – it was Friday evening.

 

  Quorra was watching the lights from the back seat of the vehicle. She was wearing light make-up; she had sprinkled perfume on her neck before she had left home. Next to her, in a fabric bag there was a bottle of fruity wine. Quorra was going to surprise Junior with her visit: she had told him that she would be joining Kevin Flynn on the trip to Washington.

 

  “Make sure you go and see the Smithsonian,” said Junior and kissed her on the forehead. She lied to him: Flynn would have never allowed her to get on an airplane. She was too important, her life was too precious and even though Quorra laughed at that reasoning, she did not object. These few days would be the first time they would be spending apart since their arrival to the User world and Quorra intended to make to most of every single moment of it. She told Junior that she would leave, inspired by some playful mischievousness – something that she could not afford since centuries, as focusing and being serious about every detail meant life or death throughout those cycles. Yet she meant to spend her free time with him: she wanted to see his surprised face when she showed up at his door, to have a relaxed evening for themselves, when they would not have to watch the clock. And then, Quorra needed to talk to him about whatever plans they had regarding ENCOM and the Grid. She bit her lip as she was looking at the neon lights outside of the car. She had told Junior a lot about the system already, about how it worked, about the security protocols and how it was constructed – and he believed her. What did convince him? The fact that she had appeared from nothingness along with Kevin Flynn and the mysterious rise of the ENCOM Pharma? The way she talked, that she believed her own words? Or his, Junior’s own desire to reveal the secret behind the Flynns’ discoveries? It did not really matter. Now it was time for them to talk about the next step; to see what they could do with this knowledge.

 

  This was Quorra’s decision, to trust Junior, for she saw no other way to take away the system from Sam Flynn. Just a few days before they were standing in the living room of their spacey house, Kevin Flynn and her, talking quietly.

 

  “You will not take action,” she said and her voice was bitter. He was standing at the window, with his back to her. “You want to wait for the legal procedure to end and you wouldn’t do anything else against Sam.”

 

  “That’s right,” Flynn replied without hesitation. That made it easier, Quorra would think later, to make the decision. He turned and looked at her. “There would be no break-ins, blackmailing and there would be no hitman coming to make him change his mind.”

 

  “Why?” she asked.

 

  “He’s my son,” he replied and that was the last word, that was the end of the conversation. And Quorra did not scream, did not pick up ornaments and threw them against the wall. She just smiled politely and assisted him in the packing for the trip. The journey was of great importance: had they succeeded, Flynn’s company would receive government support and their products would reach people much quicker.

 

  “They are not doing it out from kindliness,” Flynn told her with a shrug. “They could deny the needful permits and that would make our situation really difficult. But people talk and by now there are healthy men walking on the streets, men that were dying just a few weeks ago. They will live, thanks to the company… thanks to you. Now the politicians can either stand behind us and take the glory for backing our research or try to protect the milking cow, which the current healthcare system is for them.”

 

  “They would support you,” said Quorra. He gave her one of his rare smiles.

 

  “I hope so,” he said.

 

  Dr. Kaur joined Flynn on the trip. Quorra caught her dazed look before they boarded the private jet and she understood that the doctor still could not believe what they had achieved. Quorra embraced her on the tarmac.

 

  “Everything will be fine,” she said. Dr. Kaur returned the hug and looked at Quorra with regret in her eyes. For a moment Quorra thought she understood that expression: that she, Quorra would be always the subject of those experiments, the key to endless questions – and for that they could not be friends ever.

 

  She watched the plane taking off and disappearing in the sky. It was a short holiday for Quorra and they talked on the phone several times; for the last time on Friday evening.

 

  “We signed the papers,” said Flynn jubilantly. Quorra smiled with the phone in her hand.

 

  “Of course,” she said. She just took a shower and was getting ready to leave. The new dress was lying on the bed and she had taken the wine out from the cooler already.

 

  “We will be back early tomorrow,” he said.

 

  “Be safe,” said Quorra. Be safe, she whispered as she walked out to the car not long after.

 

  Arriving to the building where Junior lived, Quorra found herself biting her nails. They needed a plan – but what the plan was going to be? Would Junior take the risk for her, for the system and step up, the way Flynn had refused to do so?

 

  “I won’t need the car anymore,” she said when she exited the vehicle. “Good night.”

 

  The doorman and the clerk both greeted her as she entered the building. The elevator stopped upstairs and Quorra walked to Junior’s door. She knocked and waited, but nothing happened. She put her hand on the knob and entered the apartment. Quorra smiled. The lights were on, yet it was quiet and she could not see Junior.

 

  “Edward,” she said. Nothing moved. Quorra put down the wine and walked around. It was a safe building and Junior did leave his door open occasionally, when he went out for something. She smiled again: her arrival would be still a surprise. She walked to the balcony and looked down at the city, at the glaring lights. Quorra felt free; she felt loved. They would make plans together, soon – they would figure out a way to solve a problem, which had been abandoned for so long.

 

  She went back to the room and looked at the desk. Notes were lying there scattered and Quorra walked there to see Junior’s last sketches. She began to browse, to look at the papers and she read the notes. The smile froze on her face: Quorra turned on her heels and ran out from the room.

 

 

II.

 

  The carrier ship was descending: in just a few minutes it would touch down and open its ramp. Sam tore his eyes away from it and looked at Clu. The system administrator was giving instructions to his crew: three small jets took off right away and headed back toward the city. After a moment of frozen hesitation Sam returned to the portal device. It was blocked from the outside by a password which kept on changing.

 

  “I can start working on the password,” he said when Clu came back to him. “But it will take hours for me to break it and we don’t have much time.”

 

  “You have all the time of the world,” replied Clu. Sam looked at the system administrator. Clu expected him to run, he realized, Clu thought he would escape and work on his own survival, leaving the system to face the new threat. Sam did not say anything; his usual attire changed and shifted back to the armored Grid suit that he had first wore in the system.

 

  “Fine,” said Clu and reached out for the portal device. Sam handed it to him; he heard Clu ordering a guard to take it back to the city. The System Utilities might as well break the password, he though as he was watching the soldier taking off with a jet. Then Clu looked at the arriving ship again. There was no curiosity in Clu’s eyes and Sam knew that the system administrator had no illusions about the breach – he was sure that whatever would come out from the hard drive, that would be hostile and dangerous. And Sam silently agreed: he was already trapped in the system and the hard drive could be only attached by hacking the computer. The ISO, he thought, she had helped Junior to come up with this plan. While Sam had not expected the other programmer to actually commit a crime, Junior had made the final step anyway. Anybody, that intended to access the Grid, had to physically break into the server room, and hack several passwords, to be able to see the system, to attach a hard drive…and to activate the laser. Sam looked up. For now there was no sign of the arrival of another User to the Grid. And that, that ship on the cloudy sky was bad news, for Junior would have not acted, had he not been completely sure about his success.

 

  The city… the city was changing, Sam noticed surprisedly. The warning must have gotten there and now the preparation for the upcoming attack began. Whole blocks started to spin around and when they settled, the buildings stood there with their tallest, windowless walls turned at the foreign ship. The outskirts were being evacuated: the lights of large passenger vehicles lit up and started at the city center. Soon after a distant, buzzing sound began as the roofs of the military bases opened at once and thousands of fighter jets took off. Their sound was soon accompanied by another roar: a large convoy of land vehicles left the city and lined up between the inhabited area of the system and the ship. Most of those were tanks and juggernauts of various sizes with cannons pointed at the aircraft. Sam remembered his own surprise at Clu’s plans after the Grid had been updated, that the system administrator had intended to increase the number of the security programs proportionately when the population had begun to grow. Sam had not understood that request: the system had been safe and they had not had to fear an attack from the outside. He had thought that keeping the Grid dominantly militant had been a waste of manpower. Now, watching the landing ship he knew that those policies and Clu’s basic distrust in Users could just save their lives.

 

  “It’s time,” said Clu. Behind him the crew of the new command ship boarded. There was a moment of hesitation on both sides: they had no plans for events like this.

 

  “I am staying,” replied Sam. He glanced at the command ship once more. Clu could control the events from up there; for that he decided to stay with the ground forces. Probably it was not wise, to put himself in danger, for had he fallen, the enemy would win anyway. But Sam did not see a choice: it was impossible to run away and try to hack the password while the system was fighting for its survival. They did not even know what would emerge from that hard drive: they could get lucky and the attack could be easily beaten down. He looked at the line of the tanks above his shoulder. “I will stay with them.”

 

  Clu nodded and gave him a small data pad. Those devices could be used as communicators; they just had not done it before for there had been no need of it. The system administrator turned and boarded the ship; the ramp closed and the aircraft lifted up from the ground. Sam activated a baton and started the bike toward the line of tanks. He placed the communicator on the dashboard and then he glanced at the hard drive. There were only seconds left until the arrival. Some of the land vehicles moved upon Sam’s approach to make room for the User and they surrounded him after he stopped, facing the ship.

 

  The foreign aircraft touched down and its ramp opened. Sam did not even catch a glimpse of the content of the hard drive for the tanks and jets began to fire at the intruder immediately. It was the defense mechanism of the system which recognized the threat on its own – with that Sam lost whatever hopes he had had about solving the situation peacefully. The intense fire backed up the outside attack for long moments and the programs that attempted to exit the ship, came out in pieces. Then one, two and then more and more alien programs emerged from the hard drive, pushing forward and using the pixelated bodies of the fallen as cover.

 

  They were different: while the own technology of the system was mimicking the mechanism of the real world, with the generally humanoid appearance of programs that were able to generate car- and plane-like vehicles whenever it was needed, these creatures seemed to be fused with their equipment. From the distance it seemed that their wings were coming out from their shoulders and that they did not hold their weapons, but their arms ended in various guns and crossbows. They appeared to be strangely… organic in a repulsive, obscene way.

 

  Most of the alien programs that managed to exit the ship were brought down by the steady fire of the tanks and jets. The ones that escaped the first round, were flying straight at the Grid jets and tanks aggressively. As the minutes passed the fire which filled the space with electric tension, failed to cease, still, more and more strange programs escaped from the ship in the cover of the increasing pile of pixels. Some of them reached the closest jets and as they sank their claws in the surface of the ships, they began to tear pieces out of the aircrafts.

 

  Sam started his bike. Behind him other vehicles started as well and joined him on the ride toward the foreign aircraft. As they approached, the flying, insect-like creatures began to target them, just to be shot down by the jets right away. There was a moment of pause before dozens of plated wagons appeared before the hard drive. Sam thought his eyes were cheating on him – then he realized that he had forgotten to think as a User. The strange ship was a hard drive, and that meant that it could not be destroyed from inside the system and that whatever was inside of it, that could and would enter the computer upon Junior’s commands. It also meant that there could be several, if not thousands of war machines inside of the portable drive, regardless of the visible size of the ship.

 

  “Damn,” he murmured. He put up the energy wall behind his bike and started to maneuver. The wagons had started to move already and one of them hit the wall which had been left behind by the bike. The wagon went up in a fiery explosion. The other ground vehicles which were following Sam, many red bikes with Black Guards behind the wheels, copied the technique and soon many of the wagons were destroyed or incapacitated. There was no time to celebrate: right after several foreign planes manifested on the sky. They were enormous: they had large, flipping wings and long cranes… _Not cranes_ , Sam thought and his stomach turned, _arms_. Those were not planes, not in the sense as the native aircrafts of the Grid were – they were separate mechanisms. That was when Sam first felt real fear since the discovery of the breach; he was not afraid of the attacking programs, but of the twisted mind that had created them.

 

  The alien planes began to spin and Sam understood what was happening.

 

  “They are preparing to launch,” he shouted at the communicator. Clu must have recognized the new threat already, because the Grid jets averted quickly. The articulated legs moved and began to bomb the jets, the line of the tanks and the outer districts of the city. The damage was immediate and devastating: jets exploded and fell down, hitting the surface in pixels and tanks derezzed in a blink of an eye. Sam gritted his teeth. In response now all the cannons were aimed at the large alien ships, which were hit one by one. Sam and his entourage went at the smaller vehicles and programs that were crawling out from the hard drive while the cannons were taking care of the bigger threat. Through the communicator he heard a loud yelp: a crew member on the command ship cried out. Sam looked up and saw that two of Junior’s planes were spinning out of control. Their arms were flailing and were throwing bombs aimlessly; for their balance was lost, the missiles were ejected in a high angle. The two planes finally exploded, but there was nothing to stop the bombs: they fell on the populated areas of the city. All, but the last one, which was thrown with an especially great force and Sam stopped his bike and rose from the seat to see the course of the bomb.

 

  After what seemed to be an eternity, the missile fell and hit the façade of the Palace.

 

 

III.

 

  The room was silent after Sam had left. Tron stayed there at the window and was staring at the cityscape without paying attention to it. He was safe for now – but how long would it take for the User to come back? He was tired of the constant fear; and there was something in Sam’s behavior which made the program deeply worried. What could Sam’s plan be? Was there anything that the User had not taken away from him already? Tron did not want to find out the answer.

 

  He crossed his arms and looked at the streets once more. He knew the schedule of all the patrols by now; but what good did that do, if he could not get out there? Even though Clu was taking him out more and more often, Tron still could not wear his disc outside of his prison. Without that there was no point to attempt to run for he would have been arrested right away. That was not an option: he could not be brought back and get his functions reduced once more. Rather than that he could just lay back and give up – and that choice was tempting now, that he was running out of alternatives. Who could blame him for that? Everybody, whose opinion meant something, was dead or gone forever. He could do that, he told himself, he could give up. But he was already shaking his head at the idea and his hands reached out to scratch the unbreakable window in a futile attempt to break out somehow.

 

  Slowly overcoming the desperation he stood there silently. He tensed mildly when the foreign ship appeared on the sky. All his attention turned at the object: he had seen such vehicles many times. Kevin Flynn had used them to import data in the system – and back in the time it had been the way for him, for Tron to travel back to the old Grid. Sam was doing the same when he wanted to bring in new information; but Sam was still on the Grid. That meant that somebody else had accessed the system: and that could mean hope or disaster just the same. Tron was watching the ship and the surroundings. He saw the jets which headed back to the city and the evacuation of the outer districts. The program grew increasingly nervous: his original directions were kicking in and were urging him to get out the room and investigate the matter.

 

  The ship landed and opened up; and the battle started immediately. Tron jumped at the window, yelling loudly and then began to circle in the room, looking for a way out madly. But the program had searched the place a hundred times before and there was no loophole. Pushing the madness and the unbearable urge to fight to the back of his mind, he turned at the window once more. The Grid army kept the intruder under fire, yet more and more of the enemy forces were getting out from the ship. Down on the streets vehicles were racing: tanks, on the way to the battlefield and non-combat applications, looking for shelter. Squads took off from housetops and Tron reached out at them involuntarily: he should have been there too. His hands curled into fists and he went completely still. He had to wait.

 

  The program was watching the fight, shaking lightly. He was thinking, once he calmed down somewhat, _who could it be?_ It was not Kevin Flynn; he would not have done this, he could not be behind this horrible rampage. And if it was not him, then it did not matter who it was; all what mattered was to neutralize the threat. On the battlefield the enormous foreign ships were going down now and as they fell they released their last missiles. Three of them dropped onto the city and Tron thought he heard the cry of the programs that were shattered by the impacts. There was one more bomb and seeing the arch it painted on the sky Tron thought it would directly hit the suite where he was locked in. He backed up, until he touched the wall; there he huddled down and braced himself for the impact. The missile hit the building a few levels below and it shook the Palace. The suite was shaking as well: shelves and smaller items fell on the floor. The sound of explosions came from other parts of the building and that roar talked about something – the suite was sound-proof and if the deafening sound of the detonations penetrated the walls that meant that the basic structure of the Palace had been compromised. Tron looked up. The lights were going on and off and loud, crashing noises were coming from the outside.

 

  The program stood up. The walls and the floor were flickering and for a moment he felt fear: what if the building was going to collapse? He did not fear death, but dying that way, being unable to act and make a difference at last – the idea was terrifying. Tron touched the shaking wall. Back in the cycles all constructions had been designed in a way that in case of a structural damage the vertical walls would derezz first, providing a way out to programs entrapped inside. That policy had not changed later either and Tron was quite sure that had the energy level dropped low enough, the walls would disintegrate.

 

  “Please,” he whispered, tapping the wall. It was still flickering: the surface disappeared and revealed the codes behind. For a moment Tron could even see the empty hall outside: the guards must have left after the attack as fighting the direct threat against the system overrode their original directions. “Please.”

 

  There was one more explosion outside and the lights went out for a second. When they came back, they were stronger than before, for the flow of energy had been rerouted. The walls of the suite dissolved and the corridor, the now doorless elevator and the staircase got revealed.

 

  And Tron ran.

 

 

IV.

 

  The cab stopped at the garage entrance of the ENCOM building. It had been easier and quicker for Quorra to hail down a taxi in front of the apartment house than to start calling her own driver. They got to the ENCOM building in a few minutes. She was shaking. In her hand there was Junior’s electronic access card which she had picked up on the way out from the apartment. She could just hope that it would work: she was still hoping that she had misunderstood the notes and Junior was not in the building. If he was and he entered with another access card of him, then Quorra would not be able to get in: she suspected that the ENCOM security system would deny the second entry for the same person. But if Junior had entered with a fake access card, as he had probably done it, to cover the tracks of his actions, then she still had chances, then she could still intervene.

 

  She paid for the trip and got out of the car quickly. The main entrance had a guard on duty all the time: and she could have not deceived a security guard. But for the garage and the back door the card was enough. She walked there rapidly and swiped the card. Her hand was shaking so badly that she almost dropped the card when the door beeped and the red light on the lock changed to green. Quorra opened the door and went inside. Her cell phone was in her pocket; she had begun to dial Flynn from the cab, but then she had disconnected before it could have rung on the other side. There was no point to scare him without knowing the truth. She had also tried to call Junior’s mobile; the call had gone straight to the voicemail.

 

  Quorra recalled her memories from the night when she had arrived to the User world. She had to take the elevator upstairs. She went there and the door opened up right away. She was grateful for being alone; it was Friday evening and most of the employees were gone. For now Quorra did not see anybody and she was careful not to lift her face and look straight in the cameras. Whoever monitored the building through the cameras, could not know everybody and thus she could move around safely as long as she behaved naturally. If she was late, if something already had happened, her entry would be on the tapes and there could be serious consequences during a possible investigations – but Quorra could not think of that now. Her guts turned at the idea of Sam Flynn, getting hurt because of her actions. That would be a disaster; Kevin Flynn would never forgive her.

 

  The doors opened and Quorra stepped out to the corridor. It was one of the top levels and she was not sure if it was the floor of the server room. It looked like that: long halls and a coffee machine on the corner. She saw a woman passing by – the woman did not look at Quorra –, and Quorra was becoming desperate. Were there offices on the level of the server room? She was scared about getting lost in the building. She heard a familiar sound and turned there suddenly. After a few seconds she realized that she heard Alan Bradley’s voice from behind the next corner. He was talking to someone – maybe on the phone? It was late; was he going home now? For the shortest moment she was tempted to run to him and to ask for his help. But she could not do that, not until she found Junior. Strangely enough his voice calmed her nerves.

 

  “It is on the next level,” she whispered to herself. She took the elevator again and went to the next floor. The hall on the level was empty and Quorra knew that she was at the right place. She found the server room quickly and her heart sank when she tried to open the door and it opened up without resistance. Sam Flynn would have closed it… he had probably done it. The first room was empty.

 

  “Edward!” she said loudly. Quorra did not care about the consequences anymore: that she was on the security tapes and that she had just trespassed – she just wanted to stop Junior. There came no answer and she crossed the room quickly. The next door was open as well. Quorra stormed in the server room, ready to fight if it was needful. But the room was empty; only the computer and the air conditioner were humming quietly and the LEDs of the servers and the computer were blinking. The laser was also turned on: its static sound was dropping slowly after the recent transfer. She noticed Junior’s bag on the floor: next to the small suitcase there were electronic cards and a notebook. She looked at the computer and saw the attached hard drive.

 

  Quorra could not waste more time. She picked up her phone and dialed Flynn’s number, praying for him to pick up. Kevin Flynn had been concerned and he had made sure that his number had been saved on her phone; he had told Quorra that she could call anytime. But it was close to midnight in Washington; what if he was asleep? Or at a loud party? Quorra almost panicked, when Flynn picked up the phone. He was wide awake and his voice was clear. She began to talk immediately; she was speaking quickly and straightforward, without trying to hide something. She felt feverish – now, that Junior had accessed the Grid and he himself was apparently inside, they were losing time.

 

  “He knows Sam’s schedule. According to his notes he knew that Sam was going to be on the Grid tonight. His intention was to enter the building later and break in the system to import his own programs and take over.”

 

  There was a moment of stunned silence on the other side when she stopped. She was scared of his coming reaction: Quorra was ready to take the blame, but she felt like she could not take a scolding right then. Not until the Grid was safe, until Sam Flynn was safe; as much as she wanted to see Sam to lose ENCOM, had he gotten hurt or killed because of her actions, that could be the end of everything. An unbearable idea plagued her mind: had that happened, that would prove Clu right, that would mean that the ISOs had come to life merely to spread poison around them.

 

  “I see a portable hard drive attached to the computer,” she said. “Junior must have imported something in the system. Should I remove the hard drive?”

 

  “No, don’t touch it. Whatever was on the drive, it is uploaded by now. You have to shut down the computer,” said Flynn slowly. There was tension in his voice, deep, suppressed emotion and Quorra knew that she would have to face that rage – later. For now she was happy to follow the instructions. She stepped to the computer quickly. “Do you see the emergency shutdown button? It is on your left, the only red button.”

 

  “Yes.”

 

  “Push it.”

 

  Quorra hit the button. Nothing happened; she hit it again.

 

  “It’s disabled,” she said.

 

  “What do you see on the screen?”

 

  “Numbers running from the top to the bottom of the page.”

 

  “Touch the keyboard.”

 

  Quorra complied and looked at the screen again.

 

  “Nothing. The numbers are running just the same.”

 

  Flynn was silent.

 

  “What can I do?” she urged.

 

  “The system is blocked: he must have broken in and disabled the further access,” replied Flynn. He was still calm, yet there was something else in his voice – deep regret. 

  “I can still pull the plug,” said Quorra.

 

  “No, you can not. Without activating the emergency shutdown or being able to manually save the system before doing so, it can get damaged.”

 

  “Sam did pull the plug when he replaced the system. We were inside and we survived,” she said desperately.

 

  “He shut down the computer properly before he removed the hard drive. If you shut it down without saving, it can get damaged. You can not take that risk with two people inside.”

 

  “If I don’t do it, we are not able to intervene.”

 

  “I am coming. I am flying home right now.”

 

  “It’s three and a half hours flight, and you might not get a clearance right away.” She was starting to get hysterical. “Every minute is an hour. More than a week will pass on the Grid by the time you land. Everything will be over by then.”

 

  “I am aware of that,” said Flynn. “But there is nothing else I can do.”

 

  “I can do something…”

 

  “You did enough!” he snapped. Quorra pressed her palm against her lips; she did not want Flynn to know that she was crying.

 

  “I’m going in,” she said.

 

  “What?”

 

  “The laser is working. I am going in.”

 

  “No, you don’t. You don’t know what’s happening inside,” he said. He was talking in a monotone voice in an attempt to calm her down. “It could be anything on that hard drive, Junior made his plans without actually knowing the system. They can be all dead by now, including Junior. Whatever happened, there is nothing you can do from the inside, but it is highly possible that you would get hurt or trapped in the system. And getting trapped on the Grid is death for you.”

 

  “I don’t care,” she said.

 

  “I left Tron to the wolves in exchange for your life,” he said angrily. Quorra screamed, for the claim was not true – there had been no choice, she knew –, yet she did feel guilty about their escape and Flynn knew that. It was the worst kind of emotional blackmailing, she realized, and it was meant to save her life – her life, at least, if Sam could not be saved. Quorra shook the tears from her eyes. Now she knew; now she understood it at last: they were all trying to make Flynn choose between them. Clu had wanted him to choose him and basics instead of ISOs and the same time the ISOs had wished to be the most important ones. Sam Flynn wanted to be chosen above that other world, above Quorra – and she wanted the same for herself, against Sam.

 

  She held the phone away from her head. She had not told Junior about Tron; and now she imagined Edward finding the program on the Grid. Tron – the very reason behind the Dillingers’ downfall; and should they meet now, Tron would not be able to defend himself.

 

  “I have been, am, in your service,✶” she whispered and Flynn, who had once introduced her to those word, understood her.

 

  “Quorra! Quorra!”

 

  She ended the call and started to walk out from the server room in a quick pace. She broke the cell phone in two; the plastic case cracked when Quorra stepped on it to ensure that he could not call back, that he could not try to stop her – for she was going to save the ones she had put it danger or she was going to die trying.

 

  “I have seen your generosity and goodness; and I will never betray you – not for all the gold in the world. I have come from a village where they don’t eat that kind of bread,✶” Quorra whispered as she rushed toward the elevator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ✶ Jules Verne: Around the World in 80 Days


	15. The Fall 2./3.

V.

 

  The bomb fell on the Palace and exploded. Few of the upper floors got demolished immediately; the smooth surface of the building dissolved and the coding of the premises were revealed.

 

  “Shit,” said Sam and he stopped his bike. He was about to turn the vehicle when he heard Clu’s angry shouting from the communicator.

 

  “Did you lose your mind?” yelled Clu, “It’s done. They will break through if you leave now.”

 

  Sam looked around and he saw that the system administrator was right: his actions confused the Grid forces: the bikes and tanks stopped, following his example. The enemy spotted the break and started at the idling land vehicles immediately. Sam cursed and turned back, on time to see some strange, red light behind the alien ship. He started his bike once more and headed at the line of the enemy with renewed anger. He dodged the cannon fire and drove close to the attacking vehicles; the energy wall which was left behind his bike was set so close to the wagons that three of those exploded upon the impact and two others were left incapacitated. The battle caught up with new fervor and the ground was shaking – but that vibration came from behind the ship. Something was being drilled into the ground and Sam had to warn himself once more. _No_ , he thought, _a program is being installed_. Before he could have drawn the consequences, he heard Clu’s voice from the communicator.

 

  “We just got a report about a User leaving the Arcade.”

 

  Sam looked back at the city instinctively.

 

  “Did they try to catch him?” he asked. He knew the answer before Clu could have answered. Junior could have died in such encounter and had that happened, had he died before stopping the attack or giving out the password that blocked Sam’s way out, that could be the end of all things in the system.

 

  “A unit is tracking him. He is moving toward the Outlands.”

  Something changed. The attack changed: the appearance of the enemy forces altered. Sam had never seen anything like that before and it took him a moment to realize what was happening: the invading programs were being updated. The jets and wagons suddenly became larger and more powerful, also they began to multiply. They were not imported from the hard-drive anymore, but were copies of the fighting units. The boy felt so stunned that he pulled away from the fight, leaving the rest of the land vehicles in position. He drove away from the battle line to be able to stop his bike, dismount and tap the coding of the system. It was infuriating to find that the new programs were already the parts of the system, that he was able to read their coding now – and it was terrifying to see what sort of program had been installed before the entrance of the other User. Sam ran back to his vehicle and grabbed the communicator.

 

 

 

  “He installed a program,” he said. “It controls all his imported applications from the inside now. It rewrites and updates them periodically, so they would be more and more resilient and stronger. Also it will keep on copying them until the fight ends. It is called MCP. Master Control Program.”

 

  There was a short silence on the other end. Clu must have known that name as well, if from nowhere else, then from Tron’s memories. Sam shook his head – he could not afford to think that way, not now. Clu was right: it did not matter, what had happened at the Palace. There was nothing for them to do, except for to win and once done, they could see after everything else. Should they lose, Sam was wondering, what would happen? Junior wanted the system, ENCOM, he was certain about that – but what was his plan regarding Sam? He, Sam was not a program, but a human being; was Junior so determined to achieve his goal, that he was ready to kill? Or did he want to trap Sam on the Grid and then start negotiating from there?

 

  “Then we will take out this Master Control Program,” replied Clu. “You need to go after the other User.”

 

  “Yes,” said Sam. His throat was dry. They were running out of time and the attack had to be stopped immediately, he knew that. He tapped the coding of the system to see if he could block or rewrite the MCP, just to find out that there was nothing he could do from the distance. And to get close to the program seemed to be impossible for now: the red light of the MCP was surrounded by the largest enemy units. They were not fighting: they stationed there merely to protect the MCP. The MCP – it was not the original version of the program, thought Sam, it could not be the same, but Junior might have used the design of that one to create his own monster. And it was amazing: the most horrifying idea to come up with to invade another system.

 

  He contacted the unit which monitored the other User. They were moving at the outskirts of the city, following the intruder. They could not keep a close eye on him, for Junior used some sort of a code which served as a cover for him – it even interfered with Sam’s location queries, which came back with unspecified results. Sam looked at the direction of the battlefield. The fight went on, violent and loud and the enemy was gaining more and more advantage. Clu and his troops were not able to get even close to the shining red core; and they had to face increasing force now. Sam got on his bike and headed at the remote sector from where the monitor unit was sending its signals.

 

  First he had no hopes of finding Junior for the targeted area was too large; but as the minutes passed Sam became more and more certain that there was no other way of winning. Behind him the explosions became louder and the fight more desperate as the larger and multiplying enemy forces were pulling through quickly.

 

 Sam was searching. He was furious: there was no reason for Junior to enter the system, it would have been safer for him to conduct the whole attack from the outside. If he came, as he had done it, then he did it to see the devastation with his own eyes. For that, Sam felt, he could choke Junior – but first he had to find him. The area was deserted and empty with barely any light around. Above him the monitoring Recognizer was circling and searching the ground. Sam kept on running location queries and he knew he was close.

 

  Behind him it became strangely quiet and he looked back. The Grid forces pulled back at the direction of the city. Sam understood it immediately: they were losing and Clu had ordered them back to get some time. Not to reorganize, not to prepare; only to get him, Sam out from the system before the final attack.

 

  “I can’t find him,” he said.

 

  “It’s time,” the answer came. Clu’s voice was void of any emotion. “We’re coming to get you back to the city.”

 

  “The portal device?”

 

  “They are working on it. Together you will crack the password before the enemy reaches the city center.”

 

  Sam knew what that meant: that the remains of the Grid forces and the civilians would fight for the time he needed.

 

  “All will be lost,” he said.

 

  “It is lost already.”

 

  Clu’s voice was still emotionless as he said that. He was losing everything he had been working for centuries – but for now he provided Sam merely with the logical conclusion of the events. Sam saw the light of the approaching command ship. He still had a few minutes left to search. He started his bike again and sped up.

 

 

VI.

 

  Alan Bradley was sitting behind his desk. The room was empty and quiet. Almost everybody had left the building by then and the people would not return before Monday. Alan liked these calm Friday nights, to look over his files for one last time, to watch the city lights from his window; he would remember other long nights in different ENCOM cubicles. There were other Fridays when they would leave early; but today he made different plans. His wife was out of town, so was Kevin Flynn – he did not expect any phone calls or other interruption. Instead of going home he was working late; once home, he could order something for dinner and finish the day with a good book.

 

  He heard somebody running in the hall. Alan Bradley stood up and walked to the door. There he bumped into Quorra, who was running straight toward his office. Alan was surprised by seeing her there; he knew about her and Junior’s relationship, but he was also certain that the young Dillinger would not have risked Sam Flynn’s anger by inviting Quorra in the ENCOM building, even for a brief visit.

 

  Quorra’s expression was desperate; that emotion gave its place to momentary relief when she spotted Alan Bradley. She grabbed his arm.

 

  “Help me,” she said quickly. “There is an emergency.”

 

  “What?” asked Alan. Her fingers sank into his wrist almost painfully. The quiet serenity of the evening was gone and he became alert in a moment. “What’s happening?”

 

  “I’ll explain everything,” she said and began to pull him at the direction of the staircase. “It’s about Sam.”

 

  “Sam?” he asked. He was following Quorra in a hurry. “What happened?”

 

  “I’ll tell you everything in just a minute,” she said as they were rushing upstairs. “We just need to get in. For now we are losing time.”

  Alan was following her with quick steps. There was something wrong, something very wrong with what Quorra just said, about the way she said it, but for now Alan ignored his own instincts. Quorra was leading him toward Sam’s server room and that convinced him about her earlier words – even though it was strange, hard to understand; how had she gotten in, from where did she know about that emergency?

 

  They were rushing. The door of the server room was open and Quorra stormed in. Alan realized that he had left his phone in his office and that he should have called… who? He did not even know the nature of the emergency. He assumed that an accident had happened, that they would need medical assistance.

 

  “Where is he?” he asked, looking around in the inner room. Alan had been curious about this place, from where all those incredible animations and plans had come; yet now he was only looking for Sam Flynn.

 

  “Stay there just for a moment,” she said. Alan was confused; there was no time for such nonsense. It was dark and he was quite certain that there was nobody else in the room besides them.

 

  “What…” he started. The lights blinked and Alan lost his balance for a second. He closed his eyes and when he looked up he did not see Quorra. It was just as dim and he was still standing next to the console – but everything felt different. Aside from the mild nausea he felt and the sudden cold, the surroundings changed as well. It was loud outside as if there would be people running in the hall and there were distant thuds; Alan could have sworn that the floor was shaking lightly.

 

  “Quorra,” said Alan, heaving a sigh of relief when he spotted Quorra. She was standing in the dark office with unreadable face. “Enough of this. Where is Sam? You have to tell me what happened or I will not be able to help.”

 

  “He is here,” she replied, stepping ahead. “And now you have to listen to me.”

 

  “No,” he said. “Look, Quorra… I don’t know what’s happening, but you have to tell me where Sam is or I will have to call the building security.”

 

  Despite of the obvious tension Quorra let out a quiet laughter. She reached out and took Alan’s hands. Her touch was surprisingly cold.

 

  “You are not able to call them anymore,” she said. “Sam Flynn is here, but in order to be able to help him, you need to know a few things. I will be as brief as possible and then you can decide what to do.”

 

  “Alright,” said Alan. Quorra pointed at an office chair and he sat down. And she began to talk; she talked about unimaginable things, about Kevin Flynn’s discovery decades before, a secret realm hidden from all eyes and a world built up in a computer. She told her tale about friendship, love, war and Alan felt deep, deep sorry for Kevin Flynn. Now Alan understood why he was so secretive about his girl, why he asked for a doctor at the very beginning. This young woman was insane, with an incredibly vivid imagination – and she did believe her story, Alan could tell that. He was not afraid: Quorra did not seem to be dangerous and once done with speaking, they could go back to Alan’s office and he would call Flynn. How difficult it must have been for him, Alan thought, with his kids, with Sam, who refused to talk to him and with Quorra, who lived in her own imaginary world. He was quietly glancing around and listened to the sounds that came from the outside.

 

  Quorra fell silent. Alan looked up at her.

 

  “This is the truth,” she said. “We are on the Grid now. I had to bring you here, because time is passing quicker in the real world. Had I told you all this in your office, it would be too late by now.”

 

  Alan nodded. She appeared to be stable and he tried not to upset her.

 

  “The Grid?” he asked. “Where Flynn lived during the twenty years he had been missing?”

 

  “Yes. This is where Sam Flynn found him. Since then this system belongs to Sam and I have no way of telling how it has been evolving since then. Now he is trapped here by Edward, who learnt about this place from me. Flynn is too far, he couldn’t help and that is why I asked for your help. You are a programmer, you are able to locate people in here, you might be able to stop the attack and unlock the portal devices.”

 

  Alan was staring at her quietly. He felt nothing but regret and sorry.

 

  “It is dangerous,” she said. “As I know, Users can die in here. If you don’t want to take action, I will help you to find a portal device right now. Junior must have blocked them so that Sam Flynn could not escape, but you should be able to return with one, or if not, I will do my best to ensure your safety until the way opens up. But if you decide to help, as I hope you do so, you have to act right now.”

 

  Alan Bradley stood up. He was choosing his words very carefully.

 

  “Quorra,” he said. “I know that you believe everything you just told me. I understand that you are upset. But we are not in danger right now. We are in a server room in the ENCOM building. I want to help, yes. So let’s go back to my office and I will call Flynn. If he is not back, I will take you home or wherever you feel safe and I will stay with you until your father gets home. Can we do that?”

 

  “I wish we could,” replied Quorra. She took a step back and turned her back to Alan Bradley. There was a black disc attached to the back of her dark jacket. She was wearing the same shoes, pants and jacket that she had been wearing when she had burst into Alan’s office, but that disc, that disc was new. It had a white-blue double ring and it had a low, humming sound. Quorra looked back at him above her shoulder, at his stunned face.

 

  “We are in the ENCOM building,” he repeated quietly. Her face was oddly apologetic as she turned away, walked through the office and opened the door.

 

 

VII.

 

  The limousine crossed the city at high speed. The small jet was already on the tarmac at the airport and the pilots were waiting for clearance. Flynn left the hotel after the conversation with Quorra and was making phone calls to speed up the preparations and make sure that they could depart immediately. He did not see dr. Kaur and for that he was grateful: she had gone out after their meetings in the afternoon, to see the city and for some shopping. They were supposed to fly home together the next day; now Flynn was going to leave her behind and get her on a commercial plane on the following day. After Quorra’s call it was impossible to locate the doctor and to wait for her – not just for the delay it would have caused, but the doctor would have demanded an explanation. And Flynn could not answer questions, not now that he had to cross the country as quickly as possible – knowing that he would be late anyway.

 

  The car stopped right next to the plane. He got out; a crew member rushed there and informed him that they would get clearance in a few minutes. Flynn looked at his phone. He had tried to call Quorra and then Sam; none of them had answered his calls. Then he had dialed Alan Bradley – Alan would be at home or out for the night and would pick up, he had thought, yet there had been no answer from him either. Not that Alan would have been any help: by the time Flynn would have explained him anything through the phone, it would have been too late. The only thing Alan or anybody else at ENCOM could have done was to pull the plug; and that was not an option with Sam, Dillinger Jr. and by now possibly with Quorra on the Grid. Flynn was desperate. This, this uncertainty was the worst.

 

  He walked upstairs and sat down. The door of the plane closed and Flynn looked through the small window. Despite of his harsh words he knew that he was behind the events that had led to this situation – that he was the one who had given Quorra no choice, but to reveal those secrets to Dillinger Jr. And he was willing the pay the price; but that price now would be paid by Sam and Quorra. The plane began taxiing. Flynn closed his eyes. His children were changing the world, giving people new energy sources, medicine to once fatal diseases and other great inventions yet to come – they were all playing gods, and now Kevin Flynn was afraid, he was horribly afraid that they would all pay the ultimate price for that deed.

 

  The plane lifted up from the ground and the lights of the capital became small dots below. He looked at that view once more. There was one more thing, which he usually ignored, that he preferred not to think of, for it was maddening – but now, that everything seemed to be lost, he allowed himself to wander there. Should Tron be still alive, Flynn thought, he would not even be surprised by the attack. For that program had seen nothing but betrayal from Users, probably he would not expect anything else to come.

 

  He closed his eyes; the jet disappeared between the heavy clouds.

 

 

VIII.

 

  The floor was shaking. Everything was empty; the programs of the Palace must have left after the breach. That was not a surprise: the very safety of the city was a major issue, a matter of the highest priority. The guards would return, when the enemy would be beaten down and quarantined – later. For now Tron saw nobody; the civilians had escaped as well. He was walking downstairs slowly, for some of the stairs were missing. The elevator was still there, with basic appearance, doorless, but it would have been risky to try and take it; should there be one more blackout, another energy rerouting, the elevator would derezz and there would come the fall into the seemingly endless abyss.

 

  The level where the missile had hit the building was the worst: a huge part of the Palace was entirely missing and there were scattered pixels of deleted programs on the broken floor. Through the hole on the outer wall Tron could see the city and the raging battle beyond the outer districts and that view gave him one more angry boost. The instinct which was pushing him relentlessly, the will to defend the system was making him move toward the fight – even if he had no combat abilities left anymore.

 

  The climbing downstairs seemed to be neverending, yet he could not rush. As he was approaching the lower levels he could hear yelling and the sound of vehicles from the street. The noise became louder and louder as he was getting to the first floor. The Palace itself appeared to be empty: there were pixels everywhere, but no active programs – they must have fled all and taken the wounded with them. The first floor was full of debris and pixels; Tron crossed the hall carefully.

 

  He felt a hand locking around his ankle and he looked down. The warden was lying there, mainly covered by fallen debris. She was mortally wounded; Tron felt that through the touch. Jayden’s body was still intact, but she appeared to be unable to move. She must have suffered those injuries when the bomb had hit, Tron thought, or by falling from an upper floor. He could not tell why she had been left behind; for she was going to die anyway or because she was the warden and could not be removed from the Palace.

 

  Tron tried to step away. The grip around his ankle was too strong and he could not move. He looked down once more. Though she was expiring, Jayden was still too powerful; she could have torn his feet off with simply closing that grip. Had she been unharmed, he thought, she would be out there, fighting or organizing the restoration of the Palace – but now, that her functions were reducing, she was going with lower priority orders, like holding Tron back from running away. She was staring up at him with feverish eyes. Tron remembered how many times she had been watching him being dragged through this hall. He glanced around. There were larger chunks of debris lying everywhere, light enough for him to lift and heavy enough to shatter her skull. Tron shrugged.

 

  He crouched down. Jayden was dying quickly and he could wait. Outside vehicles were roaring on the streets and the sounds of the distant battle were getting louder. Tron looked at Jayden: she had very limited time left. Slowly she moved. With her other hand she reached behind her shoulder slowly. Tron felt alarmed when he realized that she was about to remove her disc. Jayden pulled out the disc without activating it and she held it up for Tron. He stared at it, confused. Then he understood: she could not hold him back much longer; Tron was going to run, out in the city under siege. The warden was enforcing her User’s rule and if she could not restrain Tron anymore then the next order would have been to make sure his survival. This was the only thing she could do for him – even if it was not much, considering that the prisoner’s combat abilities were long gone.

 

  Tron reached there and took the disc. Jayden’s arm fell down. Tron looked at the black disc and tried to activate it, unsure if he had lost that capability as well: the light blue double ring flared up brightly. Jayden’s eyes widened and the last expression on her face was the mixture of delight and awe. Her grip loosened around Tron’s ankle and her body disintegrated in the blink of an eye.

 

  He turned the disc off. If he could just access its content, if he could use the warden’s strength and fighting skills – but it was not his disc. It was exceptional enough for him to be able to activate somebody else’s disc; and he had to make the best of it, even with his limited speed and strength. Tron turned and walked out from the ruined hall. Sounds of a wild battle came from the distance, but the square before the Palace was somewhat quieter now. The military vehicles had all left and the other programs, seeking shelter were gone too. It was not completely empty, yet there was no desperate tumult anymore.

 

  Tron put the warden’s disc on the port on his back to free his hands. The time to make a decision came now: the urge to run, to try to escape was still there, yet it was nothing beside the instinct which was pushing him to go against the enemy and take it down. It was laughable, but it was still his programming, his essence and Tron simply could not fight it, not while the ground was shaking from the battle and screams of wounded people came from everywhere. He was considering his chances: even if he could get close to the fight – what would he do? He was less than a civilian now, what difference could he make on the battlefield? And first he would have to get there, which was another great challenge; how would he even make it there afoot, amongst the roaring war machines?

 

  The other option was to make a run for his own disc. The guards of the old command ship must have joined the fight already, leaving the ship unattended. He could try to make it there and retrieve his disc. But then – what? He would still shut down shortly after, leaving him to the mercy of the victor; and what kind of mercy would that be? Tron had seen the intentions of the enemy already, and should they lose, should they be defeated by the Grid forces, then Clu would find him and he would know that he had tried to escape. Tron was shaking from the very idea, from remembering Clu’s promise about how Tron would pay for such an attempt.   

 

  He moved. Staying close to the walls of the surrounding building Tron began to proceed toward the fight. He could not see any of it for the towering houses hid the plains behind, but he was going that way. It was rather easy, once he made up his mind: the programs he saw were on the run and they did not pay any heed to him – nobody tried to stop him. His speed was nothing compared to his old fastness, yet it felt good to be on the road, after the long wait, to rush through these streets once more. It was relieving, almost as if he was free again; going after the threat in the city he had once known so well.

 

  After some time he noticed that programs were streaming from a certain point – and Tron remembered and knew that there was a transportation hub there. He changed route and went toward there, avoiding the running programs. They had been evacuated from the outer districts and now were looking for a shelter; Tron was rather interested in the stream which had brought them to the hub. Inside the station he found the current: it was circling between downtown and the outskirts of the city. It was still running, though there were only a few programs arriving now: the transport got to the hub as a closed train and opened up at the platform. On the way back it was a simple stream, without the actual appearance of a vehicle – but it was an open stream, it worked. Without further consideration or delay Tron jumped and landed on board.

 

  The view opened up as the stream left the inner city. The battle was going on with full force – and the enemy was winning, Tron could tell that right away. They were enormous, the foreign jets and tanks… and the individual programs themselves. They had grown since the ship had landed and by now the single applications were as tall as some of the warehouses in the system. They strode and trampled down whole Grid units – they reached out, grabbed jets in the sky and smashed them against the ground, killing everybody on board. Tron hissed angrily. He was lying prone in order to stay safe and avoid being knocked off of the current. For now it worked: they were running quickly and in a stable manner. He knew that at one point he would have to get off – the current was to evacuate the civilians, it would turn back and return to the city. Tron hoped that it would bring him close enough; the application had already taken him far, saving time and energy for him, energy that he would have spent with running.

 

  The current ran next to a wide platform. A few programs were boarding the stream, watched by two guards. The fight was getting there as the enemy was proceeding; this must have been one of the last transports. Tron slid down on the other side, hoping to stay in cover and not to be noticed by the sentries. Just as he left the current, it transformed into an actual vehicle for the next group of passengers. In the cover of the train, Tron got away.

 

  He was very close now: the sound of cannons was loud and bombs exploded all around, tearing up the smooth ground. The Grid forces were retracting: they were pulling back at the city. Tron looked up; he could not see the new command ship. They lost, he realized: soon these enormous wagons would reach the city and these giants would thread through the streets of downtown. That conclusion was sad – but it also wakened his old desire to get in the middle of the fight and turn the course of the battle around. And even if he could not make any difference, even if the most he could do was to slow down one of those monstrous creatures while being trampled down – it was still better than to see the city falling, it was still the death of a warrior.

 

  A bomb exploded not far from him and Tron felt the shockwaves. The Grid tanks turned and moved backwards while the jets and Recognizers were providing them cover; then the aircrafts began to retract as well. On the side of the now empty platform, where had been no military moves and activity, were no enemy vehicles stationed now. Tron started once more, at the giant programs that stood there and were watching the escaping Grid forces. Tron glanced up and went still suddenly: one of the giants was looking down straight at him. Its eyes, those black orbs were dead: there was no real consciousness behind them. The giant lifted its face and walked away, to reach out and grab a Grid jet. Tron was running and he was thinking: the giant had seen him, he was certain about that. It had just decided not to waste time on him, on a harmless program. The other enemy units that were threading around him seemed to be the same; as the Grid forces retracted, now they appeared to be waiting, to be preparing for the last strike. They were visibly growing, as well the accompanying wagons and the terrifying flying machines on the sky. When the process ended they began to multiply: dozen and dozen of similar looking war machines and programs appeared next to them. The coming attack against the city would be the end, Tron knew that – nothing could resist this force.

 

  He was running. There was something, something behind the idling vehicles, a strange red light which was glowing there with high intensity. There was something malicious, something familiar in it. With a sudden roar the wagons and tanks started and began rolling toward the city. Tron huddled down in the cover of the remains of a fallen and halfway pixelated jet as the enemy units were leaving. They were gone soon, leaving the ship which had taken them to the system, behind. The red light next to the ship also stayed. Tron straightened himself and turned in that direction.

 

  ‘Another warrior is on the mesa.’

 

  The words hit him as if they were pronounced loudly, as if it was not just a memory sequence. Tron stopped warily. That pulsing red light, it was what wakened that old memory – but why? That enemy, the MCP had been defeated long time ago, erased so it would not be a threat to others again. Yet there was something there, next to the deserted ship, which had called those ancient memories to life.

 

  Tron was walking slowly. He was cautious and somewhat apprehensive of whatever was waiting there, of what he would find behind the ship. The rest of the strange programs and vehicles were gone and it was quiet now, except for a low, whirring sound from the direction of the red light. That noise was familiar too, in an unexplainable, threatening way. Something was moving around the light: Tron got to see them, when he got closer. Smaller, eight-legged programs were circling around and were monitoring the surroundings. Spiders, Tron thought – it was one of the words that would unexpectedly come to him and he could not name the source. Their small, round bodies were glowing with crimson light and they were stalking around slowly. Tron assumed that they could summon the combat units promptly – for not all of the latter had left for the upcoming assault. A dozen giants stayed behind in a large circle around the ship and the red light, without taking any action.

 

  The program got around the empty ship. He stopped for a moment, halted at the sight of the program which was standing behind. It was the MCP, the feared Master Control Program from his homeland. Or was it? The MCP had been destroyed, he, Tron had looked after that. This program, a glowing column of red light, spinning rapidly, was much smaller than the original version of itself. It stood on a heavy base, which connected it to the Grid. Tron was walking slowly, avoiding the monitor programs carefully. The spiders did not seem to be interested about him; one long, articulated leg reached out at him as he was crossing, but when he sidestepped, the monitor program went away instead of chasing him down.

 

  Tron stopped in front of the MCP. The Master Control Program did not notice him; it was spinning rapidly. Tron looked back above his shoulder, at the marching enemy units which were approaching the city. He was quite sure that the MCP was connected to them and was keeping them under control and updated. They had to be stopped, the attack had to be stopped; and Tron was thinking desperately. If this version of the MCP was similar enough to the one that had once ruled the first Grid, if it had been built upon the same plans – then it could be destroyed just the same. And if it was the heart of the siege, then erasing the MCP could actually cut the attack short or at least distract the fighting units enough so that the Grid forces would have a chance against them.

 

  But how, he was thinking, how could it be destroyed? The MCP was untouchable; the giant programs that were stationing around made sure that, and the monitor programs that were crawling around would not let any combatant to get close enough to act. With a sudden idea Tron reached behind his shoulder and slowly, clumsily removed the warden’s disc from the port. Could he destroy the MCP with that, could he cause any harm before the monitors attacked him or they alerted the guards? He had serious doubts about that; yet he was ready to try it anyway. Tron made a step ahead and then he stopped. The MCP had been erased once, because Alan-One had equipped one program, giving him the payload to deliver.

 

  _I am creating the information on your disc that will erase the MCP and change the system. Dedicate yourself to getting the disc into the heart of the MCP. This interface is located at its base. We will not be able to communicate again unless you succeed. Go._

 

   Tron blinked at the memory. It was a cherished one and it reminded him of a long lost world, where things had been so much simpler. He was nothing of the strong and confident program that he had been back there – and his creator, whom he had wished to see so dearly, was not proud of him anymore. But that did not change the fact that once he had been equipped with the data needed to erase the MCP. That information had never been touched or deleted from him, for it had had nothing to do with his other functions and abilities: and it had not been damaged during his reversion, when he had lost all and every capabilities which had been upgraded during the cycles he had spent as Rinzler. He could use his disc again, even if it was changed to a harmless, white data folder of a Siren. But that disc was far away, locked up in the old command ship. Tron shook his head lightly at his failure. Then he looked at the warden’s disc again. He did not have his own disc – yet he carried the data in himself as well, he just needed a disc to deliver it. Programs could not install each other’s disc, for their own sake. That had been one of the first rules Kevin Flynn had made, after programs on the new Grid had begun to exchange their discs to acquire each other’s knowledge – and had died or gone insane as a result. Flynn had disabled their option to be able to install other programs’ disc; and whoever had been created after, had been born without the ability to upload or download anything from other discs.

 

  His mind was racing and he looked back at the city again. The enemy was getting closer. He could not upload anything from Jayden’s disc – but he could download his own data on it. That option was technically still open; Tron had been created before that policy had been implemented. Downloading his data to somebody else’s disc made no sense; it would have made the disc useless and dangerous for the real owner and Flynn had known that Tron would not do such thing.

 

  Tron placed the disc back to the port and prayed for the plan to work. He copied the old files to the disc and let out a silent sigh when the downloading began. One of the spiders came close to him – Tron stepped away to avoid the inquisitive antennas. Before him the spinning of the MCP slowed down as the synchronization of the enemy forces finished and the final attack was about to start. Tron removed the disc again and looked at it. The folder now contained the data which had once erased the original MCP. He glanced up at the Red. He would have to slide the disc into its base; Tron did not have the strength or aim to deliver the disc from farther away – he had to do it with actually pushing the disc into place.

 

  The MCP stopped. It stared at his army in the distance with its large, bulging eyes, and then its attention turned to its direct surroundings. For a moment Tron wanted to hide; not because he was afraid, but because he did not want the MCP to see him like this – he did not want his archenemy to see, to where his faith in the Users had brought him. The bloated face of the Master Control Program turned and it looked down. Tron glanced up at it and he could not help, but smiled. Had the plan worked, had the data erased this version of the MCP as well, the reaction could be just as violent as it had been for the first time and he, Tron might not be quick enough to get away before the explosion.

 

  The MCP was staring at him with empty eyes. Tron was looking back and he did not notice that one of the spiders had stalked close to him and now touched him. The red light on the monitor’s round body began to blink wildly. The other spiders turned there as well and their lights also started to blink. They were making sharp, beeping sounds, a loud warning signal when they recognized that a harmless looking security program had sneaked close to the MCP. The wide lips of the red face opened and the MCP screamed. The horrible, thunderous sound filled the space, reached the guards, that span around and began to rush at the core that they were trying to protect.

 

 

 

  Tron lifted the disc, showing it to the MCP: the program had no way of knowing if the Master Control Program remembered him or saw him as a new threat – and it did not really matter anyway. Tron smiled.

 

_So be it._

 

  The disc slipped into the base of the MCP.

 


	16. The Fall 3./3.

IX.

 

  Quorra opened the door of the Arcade and peeked out carefully. The view confirmed her worst fears: the city was being attacked. The enemy could not be seen: the sound of explosions came from behind the tall buildings, somewhere outside of the city. There were programs running on the street. She could not see any vehicles; those must have left by now. It was a sad thing to see, a horrendous way to introduce somebody to the Grid, but she had no other choice – she had to convince Alan Bradley, to show him that she had been telling him the truth.

 

  She turned back and looked at him; she wanted to ask Alan Bradley to join her at the door so that he would see the city with his own eyes. But what Quorra saw when she glanced back at him made her let the door go and run back to him. Alan Bradley’s hands were on his chest and he was in the middle of some sort of stroke. _No, not a heart attack, please_ , Quorra was thinking desperately as she was storming back to him. He collapsed and Quorra made it there just on time to catch him before hitting the floor.

 

  “It’s okay,” she was whispering. He was lying on the floor with his head in Quorra’s lap – her cool hand pressed against his forehead. It was not a heart attack, she knew that now: Alan Bradley had seen the street from where he had been standing and he had realized that Quorra’s story had been true. And there were other realizations following: that they did not have physical bodies anymore, that there was no air around them to breath. He was still trying to inhale and exhale in agony as he was lying there. Quorra remembered what Kevin Flynn had told her once in the safehouse: that he had been wary about telling Alan Bradley about the Grid, for it had been too late to make that conversation after so many years. And that there had been another reason: that they had been getting older, that Alan Bradley had been getting older and Kevin Flynn had been worried that he could not understand the transmission, that being put in the system would have been too much of a shock for his friend. Now, twenty years later Quorra understood his fear, as Alan Bradley was lying in her arms, slowly suffocating because he could not process the idea that they were in a different reality.

 

  “Don’t try to breathe,” whispered Quorra. “Do not focus on breathing. Try to be as if you would be at home, in your own room. There, you don’t have to think about breathing, about your heart beating, do you? It is the same here.”

 

  He was looking at her from below. Slowly the painful tremor eased and his expression became calm. His chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm, mimicking the normal functions of a human body. Then Alan Bradley’s eyes became focused and the wheezing sounds he was making, stopped. Quorra pulled her hands back; it did not seem appropriate anymore that she was trying to comfort him.

 

  Alan Bradley stood up. She could not see his face, for he was looking at the console. When he turned back at her, Quorra took a step back instinctively. Alan Bradley’s face was very calm, very focused.

 

  “So it is true,” he said.

 

  “Yes,” she replied.

 

  “Is there a fight out there?”

 

  “It is. I don’t know what Junior uploaded from that hard drive, but it appears as an actual war from the inside.”

 

  “How can I find them here?”

 

  “You can run a location query for other Users and programs. That will give you the coordinates inside the system.”

 

  “How do I do that?” he asked. There was something frightening in his calmness, something, that let Quorra with the impression that there would be consequences, once they would be out from here, that Alan Bradley would have a few words with the participants of the game he had been just thrown into – later. For now they had to get everybody out, alive; it was unspoken, but it was a silent agreement already.

 

  Quorra walked to the closest wall and pressed her palm against the surface. Alan Bradley followed suit and she saw the understanding on his face. The coding of the wall started glowing where his hand touched it – he was connected to the system.

 

  “There is no air in this room,” he said, looking at Quorra. He was waiting for a final confirmation. “The space I see in this room, does not exist.”

 

  “That’s right,” said Quorra quietly. He moved his hand away from the wall; a clean, horizontal sheet of white light emerged. Another quick move of his hand painted up the vertical axis; the final spin made the graph three-dimensional and the map of the system appeared. Quorra was speechless; for watching that map once more with her own eyes, for seeing how fast he was adapting.

 

  Alan Bradley was reading the floating text on the side of the map. He touched the location query box when he found it and the square became bigger. Quorra saw that he was searching for Sam Flynn: just a second later a blinking dot appeared in the map. She stepped closer to examine the projection: the dot was in an outer district, surrounded by tanks, bikes and Recognizers – in a middle of a battle she realized. Quorra was terrified: Sam Flynn was so close to dying; but on the other hand, at least he was still alive.

 

  “How do I get to this place?” asked Alan Bradley.

 

  “You can’t go there,” she replied. “These other objects you see around him are tanks and the ones they are facing are the programs that Junior had uploaded.”

 

  “Programs…” he said. “Will I see them appearing in human form?”

 

  “Yes. Like me.”

 

  Alan Bradley’s face twitched. Quorra had talked about her own origins to him, but she was not sure if Alan Bradley believed her. He was typing again and another dot showed up on the map, blurry, obscured.

 

  “Edward,” she said. The dot was moving toward the Outlands rapidly – Junior was alone. “Why is his code so different?”

 

  “It is obscured by another sequence of numbers,” he said. He was typing on the floating screen. A third, large dot appeared next to the black square that represented the hard drive. “Junior installed a program. It has been coordinating all the other programs he had imported and also blocking the portals. It is also hiding Junior now.”

 

  “So if we could take out this program,” said Quorra with wakening hope. “It would end. The whole attack would fail and the portal devices would be working again.”

 

  “Probably,” murmured Alan Bradley and leaned closer to the screen. “Let me see this program…”

 

  He hissed.

 

  “What is that?” asked Quorra anxiously.

 

  “It’s called Master Control Program,” he said. His face was dark and Quorra remembered those old stories and tales that Flynn had told her about his first adventure inside of a computer.

 

  “Can you do something with it from here?” she asked. Alan Bradley shook his head.

 

  “It is way too complex. There was another program with the same name, back in the years. It can be erased, but it requires a specific coding. If this version was built upon the same design, it could be deleted the same way.”

 

  Quorra almost staggered from the sudden realization.

 

  “It was you, who erased it,” she said.

 

  “It was my Tron program,” he corrected her. “But that program was deleted when the ENCOM server broke down twenty years ago. I have a few copies of it on my home computer, but only that one, on the old server, was upgraded so it was able to erase the MCP.”

 

  Quorra grabbed his hands.

 

  “Run a location query for him,” she asked. “For Tron.”

 

  “Why? I don’t understand. Do they have a copy of it here?”

 

  “They used to have…” she said. _What if we are late_ , she thought, _and he’s already dead?_ Now, with this sudden turn of events that would not only mean that her efforts and the horrible consequences were for nothing, but it would be their death sentence too. “It is not a copy. It is the original version from the first ENCOM server. He was not on that server when it burned down; Flynn had brought him here before.”

 

  Alan Bradley gave her an incredulous look, but he turned back at the screen and ran one more location query. The search came back with result once more and Alan Bradley was looking at the report with jaw dropped.

 

  “It is there,” he said.

 

  “Where?” asked Quorra, delighted. The smile froze on her face when she spotted the dot which was representing the security program, right next to the red blob of the MCP.

 

  “I think…” started Alan Bradley, but he could not finish. The red dot suddenly bloated on the map and disappeared. The floor of the Arcade began shaking; then the blast of the enormous, distant explosion reached the building. The lights flickered and the glowing map disappeared.  

 

 

X.

 

  Everything went silent when the warden’s disc was inserted the base of the Master Control Program. The bloated face of the MCP froze and darkened until it became almost fully black. The monitors were still beeping wildly; the long articulated legs were flailing, trying to catch the intruder. The closest, giant programs were running toward them and Tron could see that the enemy army in the distance stopped and the aircrafts had already begun back at the MCP. A low, deep rumble started from the core of the Master Control Program: its face became terrifyingly distorted.

 

  The first giant got there, stopped and lifted an enormous feet. Tron was running; the feet came down to where he had been standing just a moment before and it smashed two spiders. Tron got around the sizzling base of the MCP and ran; behind him the ground was shaking under the running giants. And Tron remembered, facing another titan in front of the MCP, he remembered Sark, controlled by the fearful, dark intelligence even after the Red commander had fallen. But now there was nobody coming to help, there was no Kevin Flynn falling from the sky into the heart of the evil to give Tron a chance. A sound of thunder came from the deep and Tron felt fear: what if the coming destruction of the MCP would tear up the whole Grid? He had no time to wonder about that; he was running as fast as he just could.

 

  Blinding light flared up behind, so bright that Tron did not dare to glance back at it, afraid that the very intensity of that energy would burn his senses. He could just assume that the gigantic programs were not chasing him, for the heavy footsteps were not following him anymore. They must have tried to help, he was thinking, they must have attempted to save the Master Control Program.

 

  The explosion was so powerful and violent that Tron went blind and deaf before the shockwave reached him and sent him offline. It was very quiet when he woke up; he was lying on his back on the scorched Grid floor. His senses were back and his body was still in one piece – although he was seriously wounded. He was in pain: his circuits were flickering weakly and it took great effort to start moving. It was the result of the explosion and being thrown against the solid ground by the impact.

 

  Slowly he stood up and looked around. The Master Control Program had disappeared and there was a hole in the ground where it had stood. Around the hole dead programs were lying everywhere; Tron was wondering if their bodies had stayed intact instead of returning to the source of the system because they did not belong to the Grid. There were the spiders, all the programs that had been standing around and had been the closest when the explosion had happened and many aircrafts. But they had not been killed by the explosion, or just a few of them: Tron could see dozens of them farther, fallen, without any sign of physical damage. They had gone down because the MCP had fallen; they had been connected and they had died together.

 

  There were distant sounds of struggle from afar and Tron looked at that direction. It came from the city where another fight was taking place now. Most of the enemy programs and machines had fallen, he thought, yet not all of them. The remaining ones had gone against the city, confused, without directions. They were programs of lower complexity and subsequently less dangerous ones. Tron was watching them and the Grid forces, taking them down one by one. It was painful to see the city on fire, but then; the enemy was beaten down. From what he saw Tron could easily tell that it was just a question of time now until the last of the intruders would be derezzed and the restoration could begin. New buildings would tower where the old ones once had been and new life would come to replace the fallen.

 

  He turned. He could not see the command ship around; not amongst the Grid jets above the city or anywhere else. Tron was staring at the darkness for long until he spotted it: the aircraft was on the ground at a remote area of the system. Tron could only see the lights of it and nothing else – yet he assumed that Clu and his crew and also Sam Flynn had survived the battle.

 

  He began to walk toward the deep, which was left behind the MCP. His happiness over the victory was slowly replaced by pondering over his own situation. What would happen now? His injuries were severe, but not fatal; he just had to wait to be found and he would be fixed rather quickly. And then; what? Would he receive mercy for what he had done, for taking his part in the battle? Would they be grateful, would Clu give his disc back? Would they let him live somewhere in the city, or at least in exile? Tron wanted the answer to be yes – but as always, he was drawing the consequences by logic and he knew that it was mere self-delusion. They simply did not have a reason to let him go.

 

  Tron stopped at the edge of the abyss and looked down. It was comforting, to imagine a quiet life in the city; to live there without fear, without being used all the time. But again, it was only fantasy and the longer he pursued those images, the more his logical side revolted, making him face reality. And the truth was that he was going to go back in the room on the old command ship and then back to the Palace, when the building would be restored.

 

  He shook his head. It was not possible, not now, after running free for one last time, not after raising a disc in a battle once more. The abyss before his feet was dark, inviting. He could not jump; he should have lost his sanity and thus the control over his actions to be able to do that, to self-destruct. It was against his coding, the same way as lying was – it was not possible. Tron sat down on the edge. The brim was not sharp, it was rather uneven and pixelated; he could sit on the very edge and hang on – but he would fall, once shut down. It was evading the rule, yet it was a working plan; he felt exhausted. Soon, before they would come for him, he would be asleep and fallen into the deep – and no program could survive that fall.

 

  The sky was clear above. Tron was looking at it, as he was lying there on his back, with his hands locked on a massive piece of broken Grid material. The pain had eased already and the shutdown was coming rapidly. From the distance there came the sounds of the fight; a fight which was not his anymore. He should have been thinking about his life, he thought, about the great memories and good times. Instead, he was just resting there, almost relaxed, without actually thinking, for it was fine to just lay there. The time of thinking, consideration, fight… and love was over.

 

  Tron closed his eyes and then looked up at the sound of the approaching vehicle. Were they coming already? But it was a small city runner, not a jet or a bike. He felt fear again: what if they were coming for him and would get there before the fall? His eyes were wide and he was motionless. Somebody got out from the vehicle: there were two passengers, but only one of them came closer, slowly, carefully as if they were trying not to scare him. Tron turned his face at the newcomer. Tron recognized him immediately, despite of the changed physical rendering, despite of his own sudden disbelief. He was lying there silently as the User walked close to him and then stopped. The User looked down at Tron and then at the piles of dead programs everywhere. He raised his arm and pointed at the destruction.

 

  “Did you do this?” he asked Tron.

 

 

XI.

 

  They both staggered when the explosion shook the building. When the shockwave ceased, Alan Bradley looked at Quorra. There was a fearful expression on her face and he was thinking, for the first time since they had entered this strange realm, for which one of them she had really come, which one she really tried to save?

 

  “Do it again,” she urged Alan Bradley, once the Arcade was quiet again. “The location query once more.”

 

  He called the map to life again. It appeared the same as it had been a few minutes earlier and he found Sam and Junior easily. The dot which represented Junior was clear now, unshielded. Sam’s icon was heading straight at him. The programs which had been uploaded from the hard drive, were gone or at least most of them. The remaining units were hovering above the emptiness that surrounded the hard drive now, the spot where the MCP had been. The Master Control Program had been erased without traces or even a line of coding left behind. Alan Bradley looked at Sam’s and Junior’s lights again.

 

  “They are alive,” he said. “Assuming that they would not kill each other now, I guess they are safe.”

 

  His voice calmer and almost carefree, it surprised even himself. Now, that the direct threat, the clear and present danger was gone, he could think clearly. He was angry – he was furious. Why he had never been told about this, why he had only been informed, when there had been lives at stake?   

 

  “Look for Tron,” she asked him. “Please.”

 

  Alan Bradley obliged, almost absentmindedly. Much to his surprise the security program was still there, not far from the empty area where the MCP had been before. His light was blinking slower now, fading. Quorra stepped next to Alan Bradley. He looked down at her.

 

  “Come there with me,” she said.

 

  “Why? Sam and Junior…”

 

  “They will live, you saw them.”

 

  “Then we should leave too. Do you see these projections? These are still active programs, the remains of Dillinger’s army, if you can call them like that. They are approaching now and honestly, I don’t want to be here when they reach this location.”

 

  Quorra was looking at him quietly.

 

  “So can we go home?” he asked. She began to search in the Arcade and came back with half a dozen rod-like devices.

 

  “These are portal generators,” she said. “We can leave right now.”

 

  “Fine,” he said and reached out at the devices. “Because I have to talk to my old friend. He owes me an explanation.”

 

  Quorra’s grip went steady on the devices.

 

  “The explanation is out there,” she said and nodded at the weakly blinking dot on the map. Alan Bradley looked at the projection and then back at Quorra.

 

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

 

  “He is the answer to your questions,” she said.

 

  “Can we go home?”

 

  “Take one device,” she said. “It will bring you back to the server room.”

 

  “Just me?” he asked.

 

  “I am not coming. I am going there,” said Quorra and nodded at the map. “There is a debt to be paid and it is long overdue.”

 

  “Quorra… I don’t understand. You need to tell me what this is all about.”

 

  She opened her lips just to remain silent. Her face was worried… embarrassed. There was something she did not want to say, Alan Bradley thought, something that she was ashamed to admit. He looked at the devices, the keys to the door between the safe office in the ENCOM building and between this dark place. He had always chosen safety before, the nine to five, the steady paychecks, the domestic happiness. But there was something else aside that, something dark, unspoken, something out of regulations and rules. The greatest new ideas, the inventions that changed the world were not born behind an office desk. And Alan Bradley remembered, that he had once seen that fervor, in a young man called Kevin Flynn. Alan had been working, had been a friend to rely on… But could Kevin Flynn rely on him? He had not told Alan a word about this place, nothing of the truth. Then again: two could play the game. Could have Kevin Flynn stayed silent, had Alan Bradley really pursued the truth? If he had stood in front of his friend and had not given up until he had gotten the answers? It had been simply easier for him to turn his face away and pocket the checks.

 

  “Alright,” said Alan Bradley. “Let’s go.”

 

  Quorra’s expression became one of sheer delight. She put down the devices.

 

  “Wait here,” she said and she stormed out from the room. She returned in a minute and picked up the portal generators. “Come.”

 

  There was a four-wheeled vehicle parked in front of the building. He stopped for a moment, as his senses got overwhelmed by the view: by the dark street with its electronic lights, by the towering buildings and their surreal angles which defied gravity… Air, gravity, all the old principles he had to forget now. The vehicle was black with white energy lines and Alan Bradley saw several other abandoned cars around. Quorra must have stolen one of them.

 

  Quorra threw the devices on the back seat and they got in. The dashboard of the car did not resemble to the interior of a vehicle in the real world, nor its sounds when she started it. It felt like a simulation as the vehicle began to roll on the deserted street, it was so quiet, so smooth. And there were explosions again and the sounds of another fight; the enemy must have reached the city. There were jets above the buildings, heading at the threat and suddenly a group of running people crossed the street. Quorra stopped the car abruptly and Alan Bradley saw the people, if they were people at all: in shining outfits, equipped with various weapons, rushing at the enemy they could not see yet. There were programs in heavy armor and staffs amongst them, but most of them seemed to be civilians. Between other circumstances Alan Bradley would have gotten out from the car to take a closer look of them; but there were bombs exploding nearby and this group was going in a battle.

 

  “For the Grid!” they were shouting as they were running. Alan Bradley saw that Quorra’s hands were cramped on the wheel and her eyes widened painfully at that sight. In the next moment the programs were gone and they continued toward the outer district.

 

  They got a clearer view of the fight, once they got on a bridge. The large enemy units reached the first buildings of the core and were tearing them to pieces while the Grid jets and tanks were keeping them under fire. The enemy was losing, yet they had to be stopped, they had to be taken down one by one. As the vehicle got on the top of the bridge and they got to see the plains, they spotted the hundreds of fallen enemy units. Gigantic ships and wagons were lying everywhere, covering whole blocks of the evacuated outer districts. Many buildings were derezzing from the hit they had suffered when the jets had fallen; the space was filled by heavy electric charge.

 

  “Sweet Jesus,” whispered Alan. Had those programs reached the city, there would have been no chances – there would be nothing by now. Quorra did not reply; her eyes were on the road as they were heading at the heart of the destruction. Despite of her silence she seemed to be deeply troubled by the view of the distressed city.

 

  They had to slow down as the car was getting closer to the core. There were too many dead objects everywhere and the ground was torn, full of holes. It was also darker; the lights of the city had been left behind and it was only the dimness of the night sky and the blaze of their vehicle to provide some relief from the darkness.

 

  She stopped the car. There were piles of dead giants everywhere around them and Alan Bradley saw no movement around. Were they late? Quorra got out of the car.

 

  “He is there,” she said quietly, gesturing at the pile of debris in front of them. Alan saw nobody there; his eyes were still not accustomed to the strange new circumstances. Suddenly he realized something.

 

  “Will I find somebody with human look there?” he asked.

 

  “Yes,” she replied in a hoarse voice. “Please… don’t get upset when you see him.”

 

  _Why_ , he wanted to ask. But Quorra was pulling away, from him or away from that pile of debris as if she was afraid of looking at it or of being spotted herself. Alan Bradley turned and glanced at the dark plains again. He began to walk. He could not imagine what he would find there, but somehow he sensed that Quorra was right and his questions would be answered now.

 

  His heart skipped a beat when he caught sight of the program that was lying on the edge of the dark hole. Alan Bradley made sure that he did not look away and did not let his feelings show on his face: _that_ creature was lying on his back almost casually, but his legs were hanging above the terrible abyss. All the program had to do was to let go of the chunk of debris he was holding onto and he would slip into the deep. Alan Bradley was walking slowly, without making any sudden movements. He wanted, he very much wanted to run away or at least to blink – but he was afraid to distract the program, he was afraid to see him falling.

 

  Alan Bradley wanted to run, because he had to find Kevin Flynn and yell at him until his throat would allow; and then he had to see Sam and yell more, for none of them had ever bothered to advise him about _this_. While making a scene, hopefully he could forget that it was him that had never put them in the corner, who had never asked the right questions. And once done with the Flynns, he could go home, lock the doors and never touch a computer in his life again. Unfortunately these options were out of question for now and he was facing a situation that he could not understand – he was facing somebody he was anxious to look at.

 

  The program’s most chilling feature was his distinct resemblance to him, Alan Bradley. As if they were related, Alan was thinking, except for this creature was not a human. Alan could easily tell that much, even from a few steps away, even in the dimness which surrounded them. The program’s appearance was simply too refined, too perfect; unreal, the same way as people on the cover of magazines were – one could always tell that somebody had used too much airbrush on the original photo of a model, and the result might have been stunning, but surreal. This program in front of him was real, alive, even if his posture and the flickering of his circuits implied that he had been injured. And Alan Bradley remembered what Kevin Flynn had told him before his disappearance, what Alan had considered as fantastic ideas about upcoming video games: that programs looked like their creators. There was no way that his program had had such appearance – and that meant that Tron had been _changed_ to this. And Alan Bradley was actually terrified to learn to what his creature had been turned to; to find out why he was wearing that white dress that highlighted his slender figure instead of covering it.

 

  The time ran out and he had to say something; he could not just stand there, staring. Lacking any better ideas Alan Bradley raised his arm and gestured at the dead programs.

 

  “Did you do this?” he asked. There came no answer: Tron was lying there silently, without moving an inch; only his eyes lit up and rested on Alan Bradley intently.

 

  “Don’t you want to come back here?” asked Alan. “It is safer here.”

 

  “No,” replied Tron and Alan Bradley felt thankful, for the program did not sound like him or his own younger self.

 

  “Can I sit down here?” asked Alan. Tron remained quiet and Alan Bradley sat down slowly. He was careful to stay out of reach and not to move too quickly; not to do anything to startle the program. He was thinking desperately, what to say. What would somebody tell to a program, to an entity with artificial intelligence that was quite certainly getting ready to die?

 

  “I wonder,” he said, looking at the city under siege, “who would win.”

 

  The tactics worked and the statement appealed to the program’s original directive: Tron stirred and glanced toward the settlement.

 

  “The attack failed,” he said assertively. “Soon they will be derezzed all.”

 

  “Meaning, killed?” asked Alan. The question brought a smile on the program’s face – but it was a strange expression; proud, superior. The face of a warrior that was leaving the battlefield victoriously, realized Alan; and that revelation was rather disturbing, knowing how Tron’s coming exit would look like.

 

  “Sam is alive,” said Alan and saw it immediately that that one was a bad call. Tron’s face turned at the cloudy sky, his eyes closed.

 

  “Good,” he said in a neutral voice. Alan was watching Tron’s hands, which were still locked on the pixelated debris. It was difficult for him, infuriating to sit there and watch – and not being able to act. He decided to try and take over the lead.

 

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked. The program looked at him.

 

  “You are Alan-One,” he said. “You were my User.”

 

  It was a statement void of emotions, yet it sent Alan’s mind racing immediately. _Why the past tense_ , he was thinking – and then he knew. He remembered Sam Flynn, walking into his office and presenting him with a document, with an offer to get paid for some long deleted programs. And he remembered signing that paper; he had forgotten about it almost immediately. It had only crossed his mind a day later when the check had arrived with the office mail. He remembered the contentment he had felt – before he had forgotten about the whole matter for good.

 

  He looked at Tron. The fact that Sam had bought this program without actually informing him, Alan about the real nature of the Grid and the fact that Sam had made sure to tell Tron about the transaction, told Alan something – something that he wished not to know, not to understand. So many things were implied, unspoken; and Alan preferred that way for now, as all the new findings were spiraling into an unexpected, horrible conclusion. And Alan could not get angry, could not let his emotions show – he had to stay very calm and reasonable. Quorra had talked about a debt to pay back; so she owed this creature. And Quorra was with Kevin Flynn – that meant that there could be something else, that mentioning Flynn would get a more positive response from Tron.

 

  “There is somebody with me here,” said Alan and glanced back above his shoulder. “Her name is Quorra. She had been living here once with Kevin Flynn.”

 

  Tron’s eyes were on the dark sky. He did not say anything, but his face was very focused, very peaceful.

 

  “He had come home after missing for twenty years. So long, that everybody had given up on him already.”

 

  “Is he fine?” asked the program. His voice was almost neglectful, but that did not mislead Alan; not anymore.

 

  “He is well and is successful in his ventures,” replied Alan. “The way he had been once, before he went missing.”

 

  There was one long moment when Tron’s face brightened and Alan Bradley felt like he was seeing something of an old pride, a glimpse of a glorious past. And for that moment Alan wished that he had been part of that past, part of those memories; wished that he had been invited by Flynn. He could have shared those adventures and accomplishments; things could have happened differently. That Clu program about whom Quorra had talked, could have gotten a different coding, and had he gone rogue anyway, Alan would have been there to help. Sam could have been introduced to the Grid in a pleasant manner, not with anger and resentment inside him, as it had apparently happened. And he, Alan would not be sitting here now with this sad creature, looking for the right words to say – and remaining silent at the end. It had been so easy to believe that it had been only talent and luck behind the success, the rise of ENCOM, that the great inventions had been given to the world for free or almost so. But nothing was for free ever; somebody always had to pay.

 

  “Come back with me,” said Alan suddenly. “I can make this right.”

 

  Tron looked up at him curiously, surprised by the sudden outburst. His eyes were soft.

 

  “I’m not going back,” he replied.

 

  “Why?” asked Alan, demanding. He was afraid of the answer, because he was still not prepared to hear it, to learn what had happened during the times here – but he was not going to turn his face away, not again.

 

  “Because this is not a life,” said Tron slowly. “Because there are things for I feel no regret. If I was wrong, there would be a retribution following, I understand that. But it never ends; they never forgive. Now, that I can make this one decision, I say that if there was a debt, it is paid. So let me go.”

 

  Alan Bradley was quiet. His eyes were burning; but then – he was the one that asked. Now he had his answers: and now he had things to say too.

 

  “As far as I am concerned,” he said. “You did nothing wrong.”

 

  Tron was looking at him and his expression was calm… forgiving. _He forgives me_ , thought Alan Bradley and his heart broke at that idea, _and not the other way around_.

 

  “And there is another way,” he said. He pointed at the dark ship which was towering nearby. He had listened to Tron’s answer and now it was time for him to give his own reply; to Tron, to his own old, blind self, to Sam Flynn, to Quorra… To Kevin Flynn. “That is the portable hard drive that Junior attached to the system. It is empty now. I can put a program on a hard drive – I have done it a couple of times in my life. Only this time I will do it from the inside. Then I can leave and take the hard drive with me.”

 

  Tron was looking at him quietly – expectantly, for the first time since they had met.

 

  “I can remove you from this system. I can take you with me. I don’t know how it would feel for you, but it would be better than that,” gestured Alan at the city, and then at the dark abyss before them. “And surely better than that.”

 

  He stopped and looked at Tron. The program looked back at him; it was a quiet moment, as if the following decision would not be very important, if it would not be a choice between life and death. Alan Bradley was waiting anxiously – and then he knew the answer before Tron spoke, he found himself leaning ahead and closing the distance between them before anything was told.

 

 

XII.

 

  Quorra was waiting nervously. She was standing farther away, behind the vehicle she had obtained in the city. She was watching the two figures that were talking to each other, surrounded by the bodies of giant, dead programs and broken Grid material. Quorra could not hear them; she was too far for that and there was the sound of the battle that was coming from the direction of the city. She tried not to look at there, but she could not hide from the noises, from the explosions and the unmistakable, tingling sound of derezzing programs. Those sounds informed her about something she did not want to know: that regardless of her efforts, regardless of Sam Flynn’s and maybe Junior’s survival, Clu’s old words were being proven right – for the ISOs brought the Grid into perdition. It took them more than a thousand cycles, but Quorra had managed to survive; just to accomplish this task and destroy everything.

 

  She was shaking. The programs they had seen on the way – they were civilians, how long could have they lasted against those gigantic war machines? And yet they went, yet they fought, to slow down the attack at least. She, Quorra on the other hand, was going to live; she was going to return to the User world with Alan Bradley, soon – should or should not Tron take that final leap now. And she would be forgiven; the Users would live and nothing else mattered, not really. She would go back to the hillside house, a chauffeur would drive her around in the city and people would smile at her in the boutiques and restaurants, as they always did when she presented her golden credit card.

 

  At the edge of the abyss Alan Bradley leaned ahead suddenly and Quorra almost cried out – she thought that Tron had fallen and the User was making a fruitless effort to catch him. Then she saw that Alan Bradley’s arms were locked around Tron, who was still holding onto a gleaming rock. They must have come to an agreement and Alan Bradley reached out realizing that the program might not have enough strength left to climb back or even to hang on any longer. Quorra sighed – then another question came to her mind; what would they do next? The portal was still no way out for a program. Alan Bradley was gesturing at the empty ship which was towering there just a few hundred feet away from them. Quorra nodded; she forgot about the most obvious solution.

 

  Quorra did not approach them. She was not invited and there was another reason as well: Quorra was quite certain that Alan Bradley did not realize, that this was the first and last time he saw his program. Even with a successful escape, the computer and the laser would stay in the ENCOM building, in Sam Flynn’s possession, meaning all the communication between program and User would take place through a console later on. And Quorra did not want to distract Alan Bradley now, to claim his attention and take even one of these important minutes away.

 

  Alan Bradley stood up and Tron followed suit slowly. Quorra looked at them curiously, from behind her vehicle. She had not seen the security program since Clu’s coup, except for the rare occasions when she had been lurking around Rinzler suspiciously. They looked very different: Alan Bradley appeared to be much taller than he was, compared to his program, for the User squared his shoulders as he rose. His program next to him was rather wobbly; but had not he just erased the threatening MCP without any assistance? He was looking at the dark ship with a troubled expression; the ship was close to them, realized Quorra, but still far enough for a wounded program to walk there and Tron was too proud to ask for Alan’s help. Then, without saying something or even looking at the program, Alan Bradley reached out and put an arm around Tron’s shoulder. Even from the distance Quorra could see how the program’s face lit up with silent happiness. She knew that that delight was not about the actual support, not about the User’s physical strength, but about the gesture.

 

    It did not take long, the walk to the ship. There were a few minutes when Quorra lost them from sight. When Alan Bradley appeared soon after, he was alone.

 

  “Let’s go,” he said when he got to Quorra. She nodded: the portal, the way out from the system was open now, for all the Users. He was not looking for Sam anymore: they knew that Junior and Sam were both alive and not in danger anymore. Alan Bradley must have known that the younger Dillinger and Sam were reasonable enough not to slain each other, but he was probably too angry at both of them to actually go after them and see how their encounter would end. And they had to leave before Sam; Quorra still remembered the day when she and Flynn had left the system, how callously Sam had kicked them out from the server room. She was quite sure that Sam would never be so disrespectful with Alan Bradley, but she was also certain that Sam would not let Alan take the hard drive with him.

 

  She brought out a portal device from the vehicle and they walked to a clear spot. Quorra gave the device to Alan Bradley; she did not know if she could activate it on her own. The device lit up in Alan’s hand and the energy transmission began. The warm waves of light surrounded them and Quorra was watching the burning city through the veil. Suddenly she stepped out from the ring of light.

 

  “Quorra!” yelled Alan Bradley. She turned back. His face was shocked. “Come back, I don’t know how to stop it.”

 

  He was standing there with his arms raised; he must have been afraid to move, not knowing if he could exit the portal at that point of the transmission.

 

  “Don’t move,” she yelled back, so that he could hear her words. “It’s too late. You will be home soon. Take the hard drive and go, don’t wait for us.”

 

  His lips opened and then he said nothing: it was all done. They were getting to an end of a long journey; nothing would be the same from this day. A rivalry was also getting a closure. Alan’s work was done here: he just had to return home safely. She was standing there, waiting until the transmission finished and the light of the portal went out.

 

  Quorra walked to her vehicle and started it. The trip back to the city was short as she was speeding carelessly to ensure that she would get there on time. Behind her, in the middle of the wasteland the carrier ship began to ascend in a slow motion and then disappeared in the sky. Quorra let out a heartfelt, thankful sigh: Alan Bradley and Tron were gone.

 

  In the city the last attack was about to begin. There were only a few dozens of enemy ships and wagons left, fighting against the Grid forces. Quorra stopped the vehicle as close to the front line as she just could and put a portal device in her large jacket pocket – in case she would survive the battle, in case the device would even recognize her as a User and would take her back. For now Quorra had no worries about that: for now her eyes were on the battleships. Once born in the deep, black sea, Quorra had been called a disease, a miracle, cancer, love throughout the centuries. She had tried her best; even if her best sometimes had been horrible and had brought terrifying consequences. But never once had she failed to try to fix the mistake; that was not going to change now either.

 

  She walked. The sound of explosions was very close now and Quorra could hear the battle cries. She removed her disc and picked up a fallen baton from the ground, which was lying there next to a pile of dead pixels. Turning around a corner she was facing the fight now: the giant arms of foreign programs, tearing at buildings, and the Grid army with the civilians fighting them. Quorra was walking and then she began to run. Her voice joined the cries of hundreds of other programs.

 

  “For the Grid!”

 

 

XIII.

 

  The command ship made one last circle above the line of retracting tanks before heading at the remote sector. The enemy had not followed them: they were waiting around the carrier ship. Even from the distance one could see that they were multiplying and further adapting, preparing for the siege. The city was quiet: soon the lights would go out and all the people that had any use on a battlefield would be called to fight the invading forces. The time they would gain with those efforts should be enough for the System Utilities and Sam Flynn to find a way out for the User – or if not, then they would lose and the centuries of hard work, the mighty dreams would get to an end today.

 

  Clu looked down at the damaged Palace. From above the building appeared to be almost unscathed. He, Clu did not owe anybody with an explanation; he did not have to provide his people with excuses for what was happening – yet it was burning him from the inside, to see the system falling apart under the ruthless strikes of the enemy. He would condemn thousands to death without thinking twice, as he had done it during the cycles so many times, programs that had endangered the safety of the city, but this, watching his people expiring and being unable to do anything, was unbearable.

 

  Down there a crew was working in the Palace, rescuing the injured programs and determining whether the building was to collapse after the basic structural damage. Clu would not let Sam Flynn leave the battlefield, would forbid anybody that was capable to fight from returning to the city – but that did not mean that others could not be assigned to organize the restoration of the Palace. Jarvis reported through another communicator not long after the missile had hit. His assistant had been in the Palace when the explosion had occurred; luckily for him he had been staying on a lower level of the building. Jarvis had fled, along with the other civilians and contacted the system administrator. Clu ordered him to join the arriving recovery crew, assist them and summarize the loss. Jarvis had no abilities which would have made him useful in a fight and for him self-preservation was above every other protocol anyway.

 

  The explosion lit up the sky behind: it was so violent and loud that for a long moment Clu thought that the city itself had been destroyed by the attack. But it was the MCP which had gone up in that red flare: right after most of the enemy units fell. There was a moment of stunned silence on the board of the command ship. One of the fighting units must have reached the heart of the enemy, thought Clu. Before he could have given any new orders, the Recognizer which was circling ahead, looking for the other User, signaled. Its searchlight, which had been scanning the ground, was pointing at a certain spot on the Grid floor. It was able to locate the intruder now: it could have been because of the failure of the Master Control Program. Down there the lights of Sam Flynn’s bike now headed straight at the other User.

 

  The command ship was landing. The Recognizer was hovering there with its searchlight fixed on the same spot. Sam’s bike was also close by now. Clu was furious, but still reasonable; he wished he could kill the intruder – yet he knew that it could be the very end of the system. _Let them sort it out_ , he was thinking as he was walking down on the ramp, out to the open space, surrounded by sentries. The intruder was lying there, in the middle of the spotlight, next to his weird-looking crashed vehicle.

 

  Clu looked down at the data pads in his hand. The one with Jarvis’ reports came to life: two lists appeared on the screen. The names of the programs, the survivors of the attack against the Palace and the other one, with the confirmed deaths. It took Clu only a moment to process the information and he stopped. Tron’s name was missing: and if he was not among the survivors, then he was dead – for he could not get away from a locked room, not with his limited capabilities. Clu looked up. The intruder ahead was getting on his feet; Sam Flynn was arriving and he just collapsed his bike into a baton. Clu was looking at them, but was seeing something else. Many cycles before Kevin Flynn had left the Grid and with his departure Clu’s chance to prove himself to his User was gone. But he still had the system entrusted to him and he had Tron. Now, with the burning city behind his back and with that report in his hand Clu was looking into the eternity which was waiting for him: the endless cycles of work and rebuilding – without Tron.

 

  He dropped the data pads on the ground. His helmet materialized around his head and Clu reached behind his shoulder. He saw Sam Flynn running and he heard the young User screaming at him.

 

  “No!”

 

 

 

  The intruder turned around at the yelling. He seemed to be terrified; he spotted Clu at the very moment when the system administrator threw his disc. The User’s arm shot out in an instinctive motion to protect his face and for that instead of decapitating him, Clu’s disc cut his arm off. The User fell on the floor, screaming. His severed lower arm fell too; it hit the ground with a dull thud. The guards formed a circle around them: they all had their discs and batons in hand, but they were motionless.

 

  Clu caught his returning disc. The User was screaming on the ground, cradling his maimed arm. He was lying there in a growing pool of blood. The system administrator felt nothing but disdain. This User had fought cowardly and was about to die as a coward. Clu’s boot pressed down heavily on the User’s chest.

 

  “Don’t,” yelled Sam, who just crossed the circle of guards. “He is a User.”

 

  “That’s not going to be enough now, Sam”, replied Clu and leaned ahead, without noticing that he had addressed Sam Flynn by his given name for the first time ever. His disc stroke again, cutting through flesh and bone once more. Clu was sawing off the intruder’s other arm, slowly. Horrible screams filled the space: the User was squirming and kicking. It was the most repulsive sight Clu had ever seen, this creature, falling to pieces. It was a dirty job, something that he would have not bothered to do himself before – now it was different. He was going to make sure that the intruder would die in the worst possible manner and as slow as possible.

 

  “Stop,” said Sam. His voice was raspy. Clu glanced up for a moment: Sam was visibly shaken. This must have been the first time he saw someone dying. “Please.”

 

  Clu turned back to the intruder; one last push to the glowing, golden disc and the User’s other arm was off too.

 

  “It is over,” said Sam. “The fight will be over soon. We won.”

 

  Clu did not react. The intruder was making low, rattling sounds now. His horrible, open wounds ceased to bleed: his digital body reacted differently from how his real rendering would have acted in the User world. That was just fine: Clu did not have to worry that he would die too quickly. The system administrator raised his disc again.

 

  “But should he die here,” Sam continued, “we would lose.”

 

  Clu looked up again. Sam stepped closer, right next to the large pool of blood. The guards around them were silent and motionless.

 

  “We are in the ENCOM building,” said Sam. “His entry is on a camera recording. They will look for him and they will find those tapes. And even if there would be no corpse, they would know that the company had something to do with his disappearance. And it will bring ENCOM down… It will bring me down and at the end they would either discover the system or I will get into a situation where I will be unable to ensure the city’s safety from the outside.”

 

  The system administrator straightened himself and looked at Sam. Sam Flynn was standing there in his Grid suit, the way he had once stood when he had first visited the system. Only his face was different now; considering, sad. The child had grown up. And he was right, Clu knew that – the system administrator was still standing there with his foot on the intruder’s heaving chest, but he deactivated his disc. He looked at the city lights in the distance and saw again the pointless future laying ahead, the work, the rebuilding, the accomplishment – for who? For what? Kevin Flynn would never come back and tell how proud he was of Clu – he had never done it -, and he, Clu would never bring Tron around again to see that reserved but curious look on the program’s face, the look that Clu loved so much and which was one of the greatest rewards he had ever gotten.

 

  “We almost made it,” he said quietly. Sam Flynn looked at him; he seemed to be confused, but he did not ask anything. Clu glanced down. The other User under his foot was silent. His pain must have lessened and now he was staring at Clu with bloodshot eyes. The system administrator let his helmet unfold and reveal his face. The User’s eyes widened and his lips pulled back; he snarled. Clu had seen enough programs losing their sanity to know that expression.

 

  The system administrator stepped back and returned his disc to its port. On the ground the intruder remained motionless, lying on his back.

 

  “So take him out,” he told Sam and he turned away. Clu walked toward the command ship without looking back; the guards followed him in a rush. Soon they were on the way back to the city for the last battle.

 

 

XIV.

 

  Alan Bradley was standing in the middle of the server room. He was breathing heavily and was looking around wildly; he was alone. The laser was powering down and the computer was buzzing softly – other than that it was quiet. _It is real_ , he was thinking, _was it real_? He stepped to the computer and looked at the screen. He could not understand anything of what he saw there, it was too complex – and Alan Bradley had no time to start learning the system.

 

  The hard drive was still there, attached to the computer with a short cord. A small box on the screen indicated the drive and its content and Alan Bradley gasped at the single line of letters.

 

  Tron.exe.

 

  It was real, he thought. It was just a few minutes ago that he had walked to this very same hard drive inside of this computer, with his arm wrapped around that program. It had been a strange, a surreal experience; yet Alan Bradley had been very calm during that walk. They were both quiet. Alan Bradley felt a sudden shift when they entered the ship and Tron went limp in his arm. Alan Bradley turned there, worried. The program was still conscious, but paralyzed. _He is powering down_ , realized Alan, _the hard drive is only storage for him_. The ship was dark and empty from the inside. Alan Bradley laid down the program on the floor. Tron could not move or talk, but Alan felt those trusting eyes on himself. He did not have to say anything, he was not obliged to make promises, yet he spoke before leaving the ship.

 

  “I will make this right,” he said, to Tron or to himself, it did not really matter.  

 

  As he was looking at the screen there was another thing coming to his mind: that back in the days he had used to give his programs complex names, that Tron had had a longer name – that somebody had renamed _his_ program at one point.

 

  His hand shot out and Alan Bradley detached the hard drive from the system so quickly, with such ferocity that he almost broke the port of the device. He rose, put the hard drive in his pocket and left the office in a hurry.

 

 

XV.

 

  Silence at once. Quorra glanced up, panting: the lack of tingling, the sound of canon fire and explosions was chilling and relaxing at the same time. It was over: the enemy had fallen. Quorra was standing on a low rooftop, surrounded by Grid citizens and dead bodies of Junior’s programs. Quorra had recognized them when she had thrown herself into the fight: she had seen the sketches of these programs in Edward’s design book. Crossbowmen and other warriors with strange weapons fused to their limbs. They were horrifying and ruthless: stronger than the average Grid programs. The reason why the native programs stood any chance against them was that Junior’s army was… _dead_. It was something that Quorra realized only when she had faced her first opponent: the program had been burly, very powerful, but his eyes had been empty and his movements had reminded Quorra of the zombie movies she had seen in her room in the hillside house. _They had not come to life_ , she was thinking, _when Edward uploaded them, it did not bring them to life, not the way it had happened to Flynn’s or even Sam’s programs_. What could be the difference, what was Edward missing? Quorra could not tell, but she was infinitely grateful for the revelation.

 

  And it was fight, running and fire and at one point Quorra found herself surrounded by Black Guards in the battle. _My User_ , she whispered the old words, hoping for an easy exit and for Flynn to learn that she had fought valiantly. But the Guards’ attention was on the enemy and not on the ISO; the higher priority order prevented them from paying any heed to Quorra. So they fought shoulder to shoulder and Quorra let out a relieved sigh when the dynamics of the battle drove them away. Now, that the fight ended, the Grid citizens were looking after each other, without looking at Quorra.

 

  She walked to the edge and stared at the distance. She could not see any sign of Clu or Sam Flynn, nor she had seen a portal opening after Alan Bradley’s departure. They must have found Edward; and that thought made her eyes burn. Traitor or not, liar or not, Quorra had loved Edward. And had not she tried to use him, the same way he had ended up using her? There was nothing for her to hold against Junior and Quorra was quite certain that her lover had been already punished in one way or another. She could just hope that Junior would make it out alive, that it had been Sam Flynn who had found him and not Clu.

 

  Quorra began to run. She had to find a clear spot to activate the portal device in order to attempt to exit the system before Sam Flynn’s departure. Just when the closest buildings were far behind and she could not see other programs anymore, did she start the device. It began glowing and the transmission was initiated. Quorra removed her disc and held it above her head. Users could easily exit without discs, Flynn had explained her once, but the presence of the disc triggered the process and made it quicker, safer. Quorra was standing there, surrounded by the energy waves and she was staring at the disc in her hand. There was no way for her to know if the transmission would go through, if she would be able to exit on her own. Flynn had not known it either; the amount of information was sufficient, he had told once, but Quorra was a program, not a human. Or was she? She had been living in the User world for months before; that must have meant something! Or…? Should the transmission fail, she would still survive; the laser would not kill her the way it would have killed a basic, the way it would have killed Tron. But how long would she stay alive in the system? How long could she run?

 

  She thought it was only her imagination when the disc lifted up suddenly. Only when it was inches away from her fingers, did she really believe that she was accepted – that she was going to live. Quorra was looking at the bright glare, at her disc above.

 

  And she smiled.

 

 

 

 

XVI.

 

  The golden light of the command ship was getting smaller and smaller in the distance. Sam was watching it; he was rather standing there and staring in the darkness than spend the minutes of waiting with Junior. A small jet was on the way to them with a portal device; Sam had not placed any in this remote sector and the quickest way to get one was to send it with that jet.

 

  Behind him Junior was lying in his own blood. The young programmer was completely silent and motionless. He was alive; he would have died from his horrendous wounds in the real world already – here, he survived. Sam’s concern was not his survival; he knew that Junior would live, but those grave injuries. Would the transmission fix those wounds? Sam remembered, the cut he had gotten from Tron in the Game Grid, it had disappeared after his return to the real world. Numbers, the land of computers was perfect and was aiming at perfection. But Junior, he had had both his arms cut off and now it had been almost an hour since those limbs had been severed. Sam could just hope that the transmission would heal those injuries – or Junior had to prepare for a very grim future.

 

  The light of a portal lit up in the distance and Sam gasped. It was the signal of a User’s departure and it meant that somebody else had entered with Junior or after him. Clu’s sentries had been chasing Junior and they had not kept the Arcade under surveillance – nobody had expected more Users to come. Since Sam had changed the energy settings of the system, there had been no portal light during an entry, yet he would have noticed the shift in charge, had he not been in the middle of a battle.

 

  Sam was standing there, stunned. A few minutes later the carrier ship slowly lifted up and disappeared in the sky.

 

  “God help us,” he whispered. Should Junior have an accomplice, the ISO or somebody else, should they have another hard drive with more of those combat programs, that would be the end. Sam tapped the coding of the system and began searching frantically. Some of the system features worked with limited capacity, due to the damage after the attack and Sam could not find any information about the second entry. Somebody had come and gone – why? The boy glanced at the city – why did it take so long for that jet to deliver the portal device?

 

  He turned back at the glowing screen. As much as he wanted, he could not run location queries at this point; he could not be assured about things he dearly wished to know. Sam turned back at Junior. With a program it would have been easy: he could have fixed the damage on the program’s disc and reattach the data folder. Sam was wondering, _would that work for Junior_? Could he get equipped with a disc and then get fixed that way? Sam could not tell and the idea made him feel uneasy: it was too much of what Kevin Flynn was trying to do with the ISO, tweaking with codes and human DNA, playing god.

 

  After what felt like an eternity, the red jet arrived. A sentry rushed to Sam and gave him the portal device. The aircraft took off immediately and then waited nearby – far enough not to interfere with the portal energy and close enough to assist if the User needed them. Sam rushed to Junior. He was about to activate the device when another portal opened up, in the city. Sam cried out with anger and frustration. He felt fooled: Junior and his friends used the Grid as an alleyway tonight. He was beyond angered by them and by his own shortsightedness. But for now he had to focus on Junior and try to bring him home in one piece. The severed arms were lying right next to Junior’s torso. Sam stepped in the pool of blood and activated the device. The transmission started and Sam lifted his disc, praying silently.

 

  The server room was empty and silent when they arrived. Junior’s friends had run and they had taken the empty hard drive. The door was still open: had Sam rushed, he could even catch the second criminal. But he did not move: those people were on the security tapes and he could deal with them later. For now he turned back to Junior, who was lying on the floor quietly. Sam let out a thankful whisper when he saw that Dillinger Jr.’s body was intact – just to get frightened by the total emptiness he saw in Junior’s eyes. Without thinking twice Sam picked up the phone and dialed the emergency line.

 

 

XVI.

 

  The lights of the city appeared below as the private jet was approaching the small airport. Just a few minutes and they would be on the tarmac, where a car was waiting already. Kevin Flynn was sitting in the soft chair with closed eyes. Only the terrible routine of thousand years of separation could give him the serenity to handle the time which passed during the flight without panicking. What had happened, that had happened already and he had no way to change it. All he could do was to hope for the best and pray.

 

  The wheels of the plane touched the ground.

 


	17. An Ending

I.

 

  Alan Bradley returned to his office. The lights were on: everything was the way he had left it a few hours earlier. He looked at the clock and he stopped: according to the glowing numbers he had left the room just ten minutes before. He blinked. Quorra had told him about the different timekeeping of the system, but it was strange, very strange to actually experience it.

 

  He shut down his computer in a hurry; he was putting on his coat and reached for his briefcase while the machine went quiet. Alan Bradley was considering calling the police, calling the ENCOM security – then he abandoned the idea. Had all those people been any help, Quorra would have called them when she had discovered Junior’s betrayal. No; those three had to deal with each other now and he, Alan Bradley had to trust in Quorra’s word and make it out from the building safely with the hard drive.

 

  The elevator took him to the underground garage. It was quiet and most of the spots were empty; he did not see anybody. He got in his car and started the engine. He caught himself moving slowly, very cautiously. Not just because his heart was still racing from the recent adventure, Alan Bradley realized, but because there was something, _someone_ with him that he had to bring out from here without being stopped.

 

  The car rolled out to the street. After short consideration Alan Bradley drove around the building and stopped the vehicle on the corner, from where he could see the main entrance. During the day it would have been impossible to park there, but it was nighttime now and the streets between the tall office buildings were deserted.

 

  Alan Bradley was waiting. It felt that it had been always like this: a safe, rather boring life and job and then a Flynn would enter and it would be running, breaking into closed rooms, stealing softwares, saving the world. Or did they – did he? He touched his pocket through the texture of the coat, and he felt the still warm hard drive. He looked up at the building. He would give them ten more minutes, Alan Bradley thought, and then he would call the police.

 

  The ambulance arrived eight and a half minutes later, when Alan Bradley was holding his phone in his hand already. The vehicle stopped and the crew rushed upstairs. Alan Bradley was watching them intently; he was waiting. Everything was rather ordinary: the ambulance was parked on the street with the emergency lights on; in the building the security guard at the front desk was standing behind the counter after the crew had entered the elevator. A few minutes later two younger programmers appeared: they must have noticed the ambulance and came down to see what was happening. About fifteen minutes later the paramedics returned with a gurney; they were bringing somebody to the vehicle. Alan Bradley was opening the door of his car already when he spotted Sam Flynn, behind the ambulance crew. The younger Flynn went to the counter and told something to the security guard. The guard picked up the phone and called somebody, while Sam turned back at the paramedics. One member of the crew, who appeared to be in charge, was talking to Sam, who nodded shortly. His face was calm; people, that did not know him could have believed that he was calm, Alan Bradley was thinking. He, who knew Sam closely, could tell that the young Flynn was furious.

 

  The paramedics rolled the gurney to their vehicle. Alan Bradley could see it now: it was Junior, strapped to it. Dillinger Jr. appeared to be unharmed, but his face was pale and his eyes were wide shut, staring lifelessly at the sky. He seemed to be in shock as if he had encountered something utterly terrifying. Having seen the monsters which had been set free on the Grid by Junior, Alan Bradley could not help wondering, what that horror had been, what had been worse than Junior’s murderous, giant creatures. 

  A tall man in dark suit appeared at the counter, in the brightly lit hall of the ENCOM building. It was the night shift security chief: he, the guard on duty and Sam were talking shortly and then the chief officer and Sam left. They were going for the tapes, Alan Bradley realized, for the recordings from the security cameras. Soon they would learn about Quorra’s unauthorized entry and would see how she had gone for Alan. They would see them going into the server room; Alan Bradley was not sure if he had seen any cameras inside of the room, but he knew that Sam would understand what had actually happened.

 

He reached for the key: it was time to go. Except for one thing – he had to make sure that Quorra was safe as well. Just as he though about that, Alan Bradley spotted her. She was standing not far from his car, behind a tree. She must have exited the building through another gate and now she was watching the paramedics as they secured the stretcher in the vehicle. The ambulance started and disappeared from sight. Quorra turned and began to jog, making her way toward a dark alleyway.

 

  He started the car. The wheels began to roll quietly. He glanced up at the building; probably this was his last day at ENCOM, Alan Bradley realized suddenly. It was saddening, not just because of the obvious loss of position and wages – he would have to reevaluate his relationship with people that he cared for a lot… and his own situation. They liked him, he was thinking, Flynn and Sam; was he, Alan Bradley so unreliable, so cold in their eyes that one would rather spend centuries in exile and the other would face the challenges of two universes alone, just so that they would not have to reveal their secrets to him? He was driving and the brightly lit city center in the mirrors reminded him of another place, a city of lights where he had just been and which he would not see ever again.

 

 

II.

 

  She spun around wildly in the server room, looking for the enemy once more. The recent transmission distracted Quorra for a moment and she thought she was still on the Grid. But it was only the dimness of the room around her and the soft murmur of the machines. The screen was clear now and Quorra looked at the system from outside of a computer for the first time – for a short moment, before she turned and left the room in a hurry.

 

  The elevator descended quickly and Quorra exited the building through the same gate where she had entered not long before. She turned her face at the starry sky: she had not been certain, that she would see it again. She walked around the tower; she found a safe spot across the main entrance. There Quorra waited; a lonely, phlegmatic figure in the shadow, except for she was biting her lips and her nails dug into her palms. _Let them live_ , she was praying silently, _let him live_. Soon she would see Alan Bradley in a car, leaving the building. He must have gone back to his office before getting to his vehicle. He stopped on the corner and was waiting now. Quorra remained in the shadow; she did not want more conversations and explanations tonight – all she wanted was Junior and Sam Flynn to come out alive through that glass door.

 

  The ambulance came, stayed and left and Quorra was standing there motionlessly. She saw them alive and she saw Junior’s soulless stare: a part of him had been left behind. Quorra blinked with dry eyes. Edward had believed her, enough to build an army, to break through closed doors and jeopardize everything he had had; yet he had not listened to her when she had talked about the horror of being hunted, of ultimate loneliness and the sense of being lost forever. Now he probably understood – and now it was too late.

 

  Quorra glanced back above her shoulder. Alan Bradley had noticed her and was looking at her through the windshield now. _What would happen to him now_ , she was thinking. He had confirmed Quorra’s assumptions about him, with his brave actions – and now? Soon he would be under great pressure; would he return the hard drive, would he give it back to Sam? The idea was terrifying. Slowly she began to move and then to run, at the direction of a narrow street.

 

  After a mile she slowed down, panting. Her mind had cleared up and now she was considering the next step. She wanted to call Flynn; but her phone was lying on the floor of the server room in the ENCOM building, broken in two. She had never bothered to memorize the number; a laughable, yet grave mistake.

 

  Quorra hailed a cab and gave the driver the name of the jet aviation. She calmed down during the long drive; it was quiet and dark in the vehicle. The city outside was busy – cars waited for the green lights and people lined up in front of clubs. Not home, she was thinking, but it would be that, one day. Quorra knew it now, that she had seen the Grid for one last time. She had used to believe that the system was something they could win back and make it become the place it was always supposed to be – Flynn’s dream. She had liked to imagine that the Grid would be placed back in the Creator’s hands; a second chance, another opportunity to create a free system. The tyrants would be thrown down and nobody would live in fear anymore; probably the ISOs would even return.

 

  “More than you can imagine, Quorra,” Radia had told her once, “our future rests with you.”

 

  And Quorra had believed that her task would be just that, to bring back the ISOs, so that new life could emerge where all had been lost; even a new Radia could rise in place of the fallen. Quorra had been cherishing that idea for centuries on the Grid: she had had to come to the User world and then see the Grid collapsing under a vicious attack to understand that not all the dreams were meant to come true.

 

  She saw the lights of the private airport ahead. So this was the end: and she, Quorra came out as a villain, despite of her plans and hopes. And there was regret, not just for the loss and the dead, but for her own future as well. What if Flynn would not forgive the betrayal; what if she would be forced to leave the hillside house? The idea made her wanting to run: to rush back to the house, pack some of her most important belongings and disappear before the plane would touch down. But Quorra had spent most of her life on the run – it was enough.

 

  The cab took her inside of the aviation. At the front desk Quorra inquired about the flight: the plane was on the radar already, though there was quite some time left until the arrival. She walked to the waiting lounge and sat down. There was a long day behind her and it was yet to come to an end.

 

 

III.

 

  The command ship returned to the city, where the fight was about to end. Lifeless bodies of the enemy were lying everywhere, surrounded by piles of pixels and wounded programs. Ahead of the ship one of the dying intruders was collapsing under the strikes of Grid security programs; the command ship made a quick circle around them and shot down the enemy.

 

  A portal opened, close to the foreign ship. It was not Sam, Clu knew that well: it could only be another User, that had entered the system after Dillinger. Clu was watching the light silently. He should have ordered the guards to maintain surveillance around the Arcade after the arrival of the first User, he thought. A second intruder was exiting now and there was nothing they could do about it: the portal was glowing for a short time and it went out. Soon after the ship moved: it lifted up from the ground and disappeared.

 

  The system administrator looked back at the darkness, at the spot where they had left Sam Flynn. The young User had to leave, now: the Grid was not going to survive another attack. Clu felt the urge, the impatience to see that second light, which would indicate Sam’s departure – at the same time he felt… numb. There was no more important thing for the system than to get Sam Flynn out from the Grid, so that he could secure the computer; and yet there was a quiet question repeating in the back of Clu’s mind: _for what? For what?_ Clu had once blamed Kevin Flynn for putting other problems and his personal issues before the interest of the Grid – but now it was him that felt unconcern; who was almost untouched by the sight of destruction.

 

   They were hunting: taking down the remaining enemy units one by one. The ship was getting closer and closer to the city center. Clu was waiting to get there and was dreading the moment just the same. He looked at his data pad: the jet which had been sent to deliver the portal device, nearly reached the User by now. Clu ordered the ship to land. It was almost quiet outside: there came the sound of slowly derezzing buildings from farther away and some distant cries, but deadly, expectant silence was descending on the place. Another portal lit up: another intruder was escaping. Clu’s eyes closed behind his helmet. The device was delivered to Sam; if the enemy had not acted yet, they would not get one more chance.

 

  And then the light came to life once again. Clu did not have to look up to know when it ended; he was standing on the roof of a smaller building where the ship had landed. He uttered the password and heard the thunder following. He did not open his eyes to see the shutdown unfolding and was standing there impassively when the energy wall swept over him.

 

 

IV.

 

  Sam was walking back to the server room with the memory discs in his hand. The recordings from the last one hour from the security cameras; the break in was recorded. They had watched the tape with a security guard earlier: Sam had asked him to stop the recording at the point where Junior entered the building with a doctored card. He had filed an initial report about the security breach, but he did not want the guard to see Junior’s accomplices – not before he, Sam saw them.

 

  He went back to the server room, forcing himself not to run. It was almost ordinary: only a chair was tossed to the wall and a plastic glove was lying on the floor where one of the paramedics had dropped it.

 

  “What happened?” they had asked when they had arrived.

 

  “The guy broke into this workspace without permission,” Sam replied. He was careful about his words, cautious to say the same that he would have to tell later, to the ENCOM security and maybe to the police. “He was lying there when I came in, suffering from some sort of seizure.”

 

  The words felt fake on his lips and Sam thought they would all recognize the lie. But they kneeled down to assist Junior and there were no more questions. Sam looked around. There was no sign of struggle in the room and Dillinger Jr. appeared to be completely unharmed, except for his catatonic state. He, Sam was also tidy and without a scratch.

 

  He closed the door behind him. He locked it manually: the rest still had to be fixed after the break in. Sam rushed to the terminal. The system was shut down at once and the boy let out a heavy sigh. It was done: no additional harm could be done anymore. While that idea was somewhat comforting, Sam was nervous about what was already gone: and he could not even look, he could not even check, because the system was too damaged to run queries. Sam put the discs on the table. Before anything, he needed to know who had entered after Junior, he had to see who the accomplices were. There were no cameras inside of the server room, where the laser was located and the answer to his questions was on these discs.

 

  He pulled out his portable laptop from his backpack and turned it on quickly. Sam sat down on the floor, with the device in his lap. The first disc slipped in quietly and the video player started. Sam did not look away for a moment while the recording was playing; he did not stop it until the end, he did not stand up or even shake, he did not whisper anxious words. When he ended he put the laptop on the floor and pressed his palms against his forehead.

 

  He felt the mix of emotions: rage, most dominantly. Sam was seriously wondering whether the ISO was insane. Apparently changing her mind in the middle of the act, she had gone for Alan. Alan… There was no way that she could explain Alan Bradley anything before dragging him to the server room; and that meant that the ISO had brought him to the Grid without telling him anything about the danger, without warning him. Alan Bradley could have died, he could have died on the Grid very easily and even the idea made Sam angry. Alan was walking straight when he exited the server room on the tape and his face on the recording was blank, emotionless; but Sam knew him well enough to know that that meant nothing. His old friend could be hurt in the system and his face would be the same – he could have lost all his faith and his eyes would not reveal anything.

 

  Sam saw him leaving and then the ISO, running. What a treacherous, cowardly creature: there was nobody else Sam had ever hated this much. She managed to wound everybody she had ever encountered: Flynn, Dillinger Jr., Sam and the entire population of the system. Sam looked at the computer. At least they were all gone; there was no intruder left inside the ENCOM building. There would be consequences, rather serious ones too, soon – Sam had already initiated an investigation about the break in and the police could be involved as well. He would have to see Alan Bradley on Monday, if not earlier and Sam could not even imagine that conversation for now.

 

  He stood up and walked to the terminal. _Why did they take the hard drive?,_ he was thinking. It was a piece of evidence; for that Sam thought it was Quorra that had taken it. He could check that, without starting the computer. He opened the system history files and looked at the last notes. There was the shutdown, and then Sam’s and Junior’s exit through the portal. Quorra’s departure before that one. And above that…

 

  Sam staggered. He saw the record of the disconnected hard drive – and the content of the device. It was shock and great relief at the same time: before that Sam had no way of knowing if Tron had survived the siege. Now he had the answer and yet another blow; that the program was gone. Sam leaned against the table, breathing heavily. He felt the whole weight of the suppressed tension of the last few hours – and the incredible relief. The hard drive had been taken by Alan; it had been disconnected before the ISO had returned from the Grid. That meant that Sam was going to get it back, regardless of what Alan Bradley had been told by the ISO, regardless of what Alan had seen or believed to see in the system.

 

  He wanted to run right away, to get to Alan Bradley and talk to him, then he changed his mind. The experience, the shock was still too fresh for every one of them. Sam knew that seeing Alan again would be though for both of them and understood that it should not happen right now, when Sam was furious after the betrayal and Alan Bradley was most probably confused and aggravated.

 

  Sam turned back to the computer. They had won; if Clu had still decided to shut down the system, it was because the system administrator did not want his people to suffer any longer – that he wanted Sam to clean up the Grid before restarting the computer. And Sam was fine with that; that was fair. He sat down, slowly. Soon people would come and there would be questions, yet his only concern was the computer before him and the portable drive that Alan had taken.

 

 

V.

 

  The plane was still moving when Kevin Flynn saw Quorra through the round window. She was standing on the tarmac; one of the airport employees was waving at her angrily, for she was already making her way toward the moving jet. Flynn jumped on his feet. The jet stopped and the door opened. He hurried downstairs.

 

  Quorra ran to him; she was shaking in his arms.

 

  “He is alive,” she said. “Sam is alive and well.”

 

  There was a rush of relief and then immediate sadness; Quorra knew, Flynn was thinking, that it would be the first question and so she answered it without being told to. She knew that Flynn would not ask if she was well, not before being assured about Sam; and she accepted the fact – the fact that no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, her enemy’s fate would be always more important.

 

  “Oh, child,” he said softly. Her face was still concerned, still very much afraid and those words seemingly eased her worries. A limousine rolled to the plane; it was provided by the private airport. They just got in the car when his cell phone began to ring. It was dr. Kaur; she had been calling him several times during the flight, but Flynn had not answered: he had had no answers. He picked it up now.

 

  “Thanks God,” the doctor exclaimed. “They told me you had flown out while I’d been out. What happened?”

 

  “Everything is fine,” he replied.

 

  “Is it Quorra?” the doctor asked. “Did something happen to her?”

 

  Flynn gave the phone to Quorra. She took it somewhat hesitantly, overwhelmed by dr. Kaur’s questions right away.

 

  “All is good,” Quorra whispered in the phone. “I’m fine.”

 

  Flynn was waiting while they were talking. He knew what was the most important, his son and Quorra lived, yet there were many other questions. Finally Quorra finished the phone call and looked at Flynn. And he got his answers: they arrived home in the meantime and they were sitting in the living room of the hillside house when she got to the end of the story.

 

  He sat there, stunned by her words. Flynn wanted to jump on his feet while Quorra was talking, to start yelling, especially when she told him about bringing Alan Bradley to the Grid – and then he remained silent and did not let his emotions show on his face throughout her talk. There was no point to interrupt: everything was done by now and judging the actions she had taken after discovering the breach was like judging the actions of an individual, that had been in the middle of a possibly fatal traffic accident – it was always easy to criticize them afterwards, when the month-long investigation determined that they had pulled the steering wheel in the wrong direction in the moment of distress.

 

  And it was done now: everybody had escaped the Grid alive. Alive, at least physically; Quorra had not met Junior and she could not tell, what had happened to the young programmer on the Grid, but upon the way Dillinger Jr. had been taken from the ENCOM building later one could assume that he had encountered something, that had been unexpected, too much. Sam was alive – and Flynn would have called him, regardless of the late night hour, but he knew that his son was not going to answer anyway. And Alan… Alan had seen the system from the inside. Quorra had brought him there, doing what Kevin Flynn could not make himself to do for years. And he was gone now, along with his program. That idea made him glad beyond words and terrified at the same time. He had lost Alan, Kevin Flynn knew that; had Alan Bradley understood just part of what he had seen on the Grid, he must have lost all his respect towards the Flynns. But then, it was not a choice: Alan lived and he was safe – and that was all that mattered. That, and one more thing.

 

  Flynn stood up. He felt Quorra’s eyes on himself as he walked to the window. He blinked at the peaceful sight of the city. It was the middle of the night and still he knew that they would pick up if he dialed and called Alan Bradley.

 

  There was silence on the line.

 

  “Alan,” said Flynn. There came no response. “I’m coming over.”

 

  “No,” replied Alan Bradley. His voice was clear and he was wide awake. It was quiet in the background; he was probably home.

 

  “We need to talk,” insisted Flynn.

 

  “Right. So call me tomorrow morning.”

 

  Flynn was quiet and Alan Bradley hung up the phone. He felt lucky with the answer anyway. He turned back to Quorra, who was still sitting on the couch as if she was waiting for the verdict. Just back from a battle, just betrayed by a loved one, Quorra was looking at him calmly. And Flynn remembered: that he had used to wonder about the difference between the Grid and the real world, that the magical creatures of the digital realm would not find their place in the world of gas bills, scammers and measles. But Quorra had tried; she had done her best, despite of everything, despite of all the people that had used her – he, Kevin Flynn amongst them.

 

  Quorra stood up. Flynn walked there and embraced her without saying a word.

 

VI. 

 

  It was silent and dark in the house when Alan Bradley entered and closed the door behind himself. He turned on the light and put down his keys. He was grateful for the empty house, for being left alone. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the hard drive; Alan Bradley was standing there for long, staring at the device.

 

  He went upstairs, into his study. It was comforting, the familiar space and the daily ritual; he turned on his home computer. It was an old desktop that Alan Bradley had upgraded many times during the years. It was not permanently connected to the internet: there was another desktop in Lora’s study, which had connection, and there was WIFI in the house for their tablets and other devices, but this one computer was not in the network.

 

  Once the system came to life, Alan Bradley connected the hard drive. The window popped up, with the name of the single file inside. He was watching it without taking any action for long. Finally he reached for the mouse: he moved the program from the hard drive into the Documents folder of his computer. When it was done he looked at his hands: they were visibly shaking. He leant back in his chair. Had he, Alan Bradley was thinking, had Kevin Flynn been touching the keyboard with trembling hands when his actions had meant life or death for digital entities? For programs? He shook his head: the idea, the question was a distraction, a rather good sort of puzzle, which made him focus once more. He was not supposed to be able to remove a program from another system by simply grabbing it and taking it to a hard drive – and if it had happened, if that file he saw on his screen now, was the same entity he had met on the Grid, then it was not a program.

 

  “Artificial intelligence,” he whispered it to himself. But how, Alan Bradley was thinking, how it had happened? And when? Did it have something to do with the original Master Control Program? Throughout the years Kevin Flynn had talked about the MCP as if it had been Edward Dillinger’s program version, his digital imprint – but Flynn had always said that with a smile as if he had been joking about that. Did Flynn know the answer, was he right? Did the installation of the upgraded MCP trigger the change and prompted other applications to evolve?

 

  Alan Bradley looked at the program on the screen. He remembered how Tron had fallen half asleep once placed on the hard drive; he could be awake now again. How it would look like for him, Alan’s computer from the inside? Would it be any similar to the Grid, would he see the other programs marching around? For some reason Alan had serious doubts about that. And now, what was he supposed to do? How he was he going to communicate with this program? If it would be a regular security program, it would scan the computer and would return with results. Alan Bradley was examining the coding of the program and felt rather stunned by the extent of changes which had been made during the years. He was angry and exhausted: he decided to go to the bed so that in the morning he could start thinking about what to do and get ready for the meeting with Flynn. He looked at the program once more. He saw the lines of coding which determined the speed and strength of the program: which made him slow and weak. It would not hurt to fix those issues, he thought and worked on the codes for a while before standing up. He left the computer running when he went to his bedroom.

 

  He woke up early, after a few hours of restless sleep. He had an email from Lora; she had almost forgotten that they were in different time zones and had almost called him an hour earlier, the message explained. Despite of his dark mood, Alan Bradley smiled at the email, which also let him know about her arrival to home later that day.

 

  The text message from Sam Flynn came when Alan Bradley was finishing his coffee. He knew it would be coming from Sam before he actually opened the message.

 

  ‘Hi Alan. How are you,’ it read. After short consideration he replied; there was no point to ignore the text.

 

  ‘Good, thanks. How are you?’

 

  A few minutes passed.

 

  ‘You took something from my workstation yesterday and I need it back. I will stop by later today.’

 

  He was thinking long, then he responded shortly.

 

  ‘No.’

 

  Sam did not reply; Alan Bradley was concerned. He knew the younger Flynn well enough to know that Sam would come, should that be the last word. He typed another message.

 

  ‘See you in the office on Monday. We’ll talk then.’

 

  ‘Alright.’

 

  He sighed. He barely put down the phone when there came one more message, this time from Kevin Flynn. They would not let him be, Alan Bradley realized, not until they got what they wanted. In a few short texts they agreed that Flynn would come early in the afternoon; before Lora’s arrival. Alan Bradley tossed the phone away, hoping not to get another call or message.

 

  He turned on the light in one of the walk-in closets. There were no clothes and shoes here, but boxes, wires and discs everywhere; computer accessories he had piled up during the years. There was a large, heavy box in the back: he did not have to look for it for long, as it was one of the largest boxes there. He hauled it into the study; he unpacked the machine carefully and was praying for it to work while assembling it.

 

  The lights on the device turned on right away and the machine started buzzing. Alan Bradley examined it: the standing stool, the head set with the glasses, the heavy gloves, the microphone, the earpieces and the jungle of wires. He was about to connect it to the computer, then he stopped. Alan Bradley went back to his room and changed to his usual office attire before returning to the study.

 

  He stepped on the short stool and put on the head set before adjusting the gloves. Through the glasses Alan Bradley saw the icons of the desktop appearing one by one. They emerged as physical objects around him: the Documents folder was a simple white door before him, with a written tag above. He mimicked walking without stepping down from the stool. He stopped in front of the door and lifted his hand. He felt the contact through the gloves and the door opened.

 

  The room inside was large and white, as Alan Bradley remembered it. The music was new; it came from the earpiece. He recognized it quickly: it was the Air from Bach, one of his MP3 files in the Music folder. On the floor there were piles of books: his e-books had the actual appearance of real books in the virtual reality. Next to the wall Tron was sitting, with an encyclopedia in his lap. He glanced up when Alan Bradley entered the room. The program closed the book and stood up. Alan Bradley saw him clearly, the way he had seen him on the Grid: Tron was the same and yet very different now. The way he was moving lacked the wariness and rather reminded Alan Bradley how dancers or professional fighters were walking around: effortlessly and with great confidence. The program’s basic appearance had not been altered, he had not become larger from the fixes – but something else had very much changed. He did not wear his tight, white suit anymore; he was dressed in a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and sneakers. It took Alan Bradley a moment to recognize the outfit and became alarmed immediately.

 

  Those clothes, his son Jet had been wearing those clothes on a family vacation two years before. They had made many photos and videos during those days – and the pictures and videos were also stored on this computer. The problem was not that the program had access to those files, but what he was trying to communicate toward Alan. Alan Bradley was quite sure that the program was intelligent enough to understand the content of the files and the maybe even the relationship between him and Jet. And he suddenly felt less judgmental about the Flynns; not because they had not been wrong, they had not failed – they had -, but because now he saw the other side of the coin too. There were not even words spoken and yet this program reached out at him in an attempt to make Alan like him; though he did not even know Alan, he could not even know if it was safe to trust this User. And now Alan understood, how easily one could fall, how easily any kind of relationship with such entity could turn into the worst kind of abuse upon the smallest push or without the observance of a third party.

 

  Tron walked closer to him and then he stopped. He leaned closer to Alan Bradley: his face was happy and curious.

 

  “We are not in the same reality anymore,” said Alan Bradley. “This is just a projection.”

 

  “How?” asked Tron.

 

  “There is only one digitalizing laser and that belongs to ENCOM. What I am using now is a very different device. It was developed many years ago to create a virtual reality in which people can enter their computers. Of course I am not actually inside the machine now. I am in my office in my real world. I am standing on a stool that reads my motions; I am wearing glasses and a headpiece to see the content of the computer. I am talking to a microphone and hear through an earpiece. I have no way of telling what you can see of me now, obviously. My guess that it is a 2D projection.”

 

  Tron nodded with some uncertainty. Alan looked at the piles of books. There were so many encyclopedias, fiction and non-fiction books on the hard drive – had Tron read everything during the night? He turned back at the program. There was a question he had to ask before anything else.

 

  “Is the inside of this system any similar for you to that computer at ENCOM?” he asked.

 

  “No,” the program replied without hesitation.

 

  “There are programs running on this computer, another version of… you amongst them,” said Alan Bradley. “Have you seen them? Are they like the programs in that other system? Are they like you?”

 

  Tron’s expression changed and Alan knew that the program understood the question – and his concern that had prompted him to ask.

 

  “No,” replied Tron. “They are different. They don’t… live, not the way people live on the Grid.”

 

  Alan nodded. Not all of his known world would be up for grabs after all.

 

  “I am here to listen,” he said.

 

 

VII.

 

  Clu opened his eyes. He was standing on a cliff, with his entourage around him. They woke up at the same time as him: the system restarted. Clu looked down at the plains before him: it was full of programs – he had never seen so many of them together. The entire surviving population of the Grid, he realized a moment later; they had been relocated, outside of the burnt city.

 

  He lifted his gaze. The system was clean now: the remains of the enemy had disappeared. A bright light emerged above the buildings and engulfed the whole empty establishment. When the light went out the city was there again, the way it had been before the attack. Sam Flynn reloaded all the information from the computer back ups, Clu was thinking – them, the programs had been removed from there so that they had not been in the way when it had happened.

 

  There was a long sigh coming from the enormous crowd. The people saw the restoration and there was an expectant silence; they were waiting for advice. Clu stepped ahead, to the edge of the cliff and the programs looked up. He talked to the people; about the attack that had been thrown back and that they were safe now – Clu was certain about that. The remaining sentries and guards began toward the city, with the first groups of programs behind them.

 

  It was quiet as they returned, even when the programs found their abandoned bikes and cars and the sound of vehicles filled the streets. Nobody talked: the loss was too great. There would be another restoration, the system administrator knew that: Sam Flynn would reload the dead programs from the back up files. But he knew and they all knew that it would not be the same, that whatever would come back, that would be different programs, only the copies of the fallen.

 

  There was not much for them to do: all the debris had disappeared, along with the remains of the enemy and the native programs. They were to return to their tasks until Sam Flynn’s next arrival and they did so, though slowly, reluctantly; frozen. There was no unrest of any form: the recent attack against the system united the survivors. While the number of the fallen was not overwhelming, compared to the whole population of the system, it was still the greatest fallback since the Purge.

 

  Clu delayed the moment until there were no excuses left, no duties to attend. He returned to the old command ship, walking slowly. It was dark and quiet. He touched the hidden drawer on the wall and it opened silently. Clu took out the white identity disc and sat down onto the edge of the bed. He did not want to see those memory files, the last memory files on that disc, but he had to know – he had to know how Tron had died.

 

  In the memory the bomb fell and hit the Palace: and the picture did not cut off. The program had survived the first explosion and Clu was watching the recording with mixed feelings. He was hoping to find out that the program had derezzed easily and the fact that there was more was difficult to deal with – on the other hand the system administrator was glad to see that Tron had not died locked up in a cell. On the recording Tron encountered the dying warden and made his way through the city, at the direction of the MCP. Clu was watching with growing disbelief, sensing what would come, understanding at last what sort of events had led to the destruction of the Master Control Program. After the thunderous explosion the memories ended for a short while, just to start again soon after.

 

  And there came the other User, the one Kevin Flynn had mentioned a few times, the one Tron had wished to meet so much. Watching the recording Clu knew how happy the program had been to see his former User, even though Tron had thought that it would not make a difference, that he would die anyway. But there were words and promises and then a walk to the foreign ship – and Clu felt such anger and relief at the same time that it actually hurt. And there were the final moments: Tron was lying inside of the dark ship, with his face turned at the city. It was cold and the program could not move: the only thing he could do was to watch the city in the distance. Then the ramp slowly closed and the recording ended as the program was disconnected from the system.

 

  Clu stood up with the disc in his hands. He was furious and yet there was a smile on his face. He felt hate: should there be a single opportunity, one chance to get Tron’s old User in his hands, he would make the User regret ever setting foot on the Grid. Then that feeling passed and great calmness descended on him. Clu had seen Tron running and fighting, despite of the program’s obvious weakness – and had seen him putting down the enemy once more. The system administrator heard him talking to the User, talking and not asking for help, not complaining with a word. Clu closed his eyes. This was why Flynn had brought this program to his new system, this was why he had named the city after Tron. This was why the fight had never ended, why Clu had had to reprogram Tron to get a simple smile from him. This was why Tron could still refuse him later, after his reversion, refuse Clu, even if the program could not even lift a finger. And this was why Clu was going to get him back now: because the system administrator had been created to achieve perfection – but his world was not perfect without Tron.

 

 

VIII.

 

  The car came to a stop in front of the house. Kevin Flynn stepped out onto the gravels and looked around. A kid was riding a bike on the walkway; somebody was washing a car and another neighbor was watering the lawn in front of a house. It was a lovely Saturday morning.

 

  He walked to the door and knocked. A minute later the door opened and Alan Bradley let him inside. Alan’s face was very serious, almost dark; there was a long, difficult conversation waiting for them. There were glasses and a bottle of water on the table in the living room; they sat down

 

  “I called in to ENCOM earlier,” said Alan Bradley. “I talked to the head of security. He told me that last night Dillinger Jr. had made an unauthorized entry and was found unresponsive a few minutes later. He was taken to hospital – no word on his condition so far. Upon the advice of the company attorneys, a police report was filed. If, or when Junior recovers and returns, he will face charges and a lawsuit.”

 

  Kevin Flynn slowly nodded.

 

  “This is the official version of the events,” said Alan Bradley. “Now I want to know the truth.”

 

  He was talking: Kevin Flynn was talking for very long. Alan Bradley only interrupted a few times, to ask a question here and there. He was listening with stern face, though his questions were professional and his tone was not offensive when he spoke. And it was alright; it was fine to tell the truth at the end, to discuss these things. While Flynn was focusing on the story and on being as clear as possible, suddenly he thought of Lora Baines. He had been told that Lora would return later that day and Flynn was thinking now – that she hated him so much that had she returned while the limousine parked outside, she would sit on the curb instead of entering her own house or would go to the corner café and wait there. So many things had changed; and Flynn knew that it could be like that after this day, he could lose Alan Bradley just the same. But there was nothing for him to do about that; there was no escape from telling the truth anymore.

 

  Alan was sitting there quietly when Flynn finished. His face turned at the window: bright sunlight was coming in through the shades. They should have spoken like this, twenty years earlier, Flynn thought, he should have spoken. Now it was too late. The silence grew uncomfortably long.

 

  “Alan,” said Flynn. Alan Bradley looked at him. “Talk to me.”

 

  “You, Flynns,” said Alan. “You both want to save the world so desperately. But who is going to save the world from you, guys?”

 

  Kevin Flynn stirred as if he had been slapped at the face. But then; he deserved that.

 

  "What are you going to do now?” he asked.

 

  “I haven’t made my decision yet. I will talk to Lora tonight.”

 

  Alan stopped, appeared to be considering his words.

 

  “The worst part is,” he said, looking at Flynn in the eyes. “Is the what if. That this could have been done well. That should you be the person you pretended to be, it could have been conducted professionally. Not by lying, cheating, not by the whims of an unbalanced individual. I am talking about you.”

 

  They were sitting there in silence for long; at the end it was Kevin Flynn who looked away.

 

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

 

  “I believe you do.”

 

  “I’m trying to mend matters.”

 

  “The ENCOM Pharma? By ending all the suffering on the world?” asked Alan Bradley. “Good. I wish you success; your results will be much appreciated. I hope Quorra appreciates the opportunity to be the subject of all those experiments too.”

 

  “Quorra has been and always will be a willful participant. Because in the moment when she wants to be out, she is out.”

 

  “Well… At least one program was given this option.”

 

  “Alan…” started Kevin Flynn. Just when Alan looked at him again, he saw how shaken his old friend was. “I _am_ sorry.”

 

  Alan Bradley sighed.

 

  “I know,” he said.

 

  “Alan… where is he?”

 

  Alan Bradley straightened himself in his seat.

 

  “Safe,” he said.

 

  “Give me the hard drive,” said Flynn. Alan laughed sharply, incredulously.

 

  “No,” he said simply when he stopped laughing.

 

  “Alan, what I mean… You work for ENCOM. If you don’t give me the program, Sam will make you return it to the company.”

 

  “I know. He wants it back.”

 

  “That can not happen.”

 

  “I agree,” nodded Alan. “None of you guys will get it.”

 

  “You don’t understand. He…”

 

  Alan Bradley leaned ahead.

 

  “I understand,” he said. “I talked to him. I talked to Tron.”

 

  “How?” asked Flynn, shocked. “The laser…”

 

  “There is only one laser.”

 

  Kevin Flynn was speechless; then he remembered.

 

  “Your invention,” he said. Alan smiled.

 

  “You didn’t forget it. I’m impressed. It was in a very early stage at the time of your disappearance. I finished it and it worked. But it didn’t get a green light from ENCOM, it was considered too expensive, too risky. I kept the prototype nevertheless. It is rather laughable today, knowing how differently people approach virtual reality, how different devices they use, but it is working.”

 

  “Let me talk to him,” asked Flynn before thinking twice. He thought he would be mocked at and ridiculed; but Alan seemed to be sorry when he looked at him.

 

  “Let me think,” said Alan. “Come back tomorrow, at the same time.”

 

 

IX.

 

  The place was busy: doctors and nurses were coming and going and there were patients, sitting on chairs with their relatives. Quorra felt lost; she had been at medical facilities before, but those were mostly labors and places of experiments. She managed to get a room number from an overwhelmed nurse, to whom Quorra told that she was Edward’s sister. She took the elevator and exited on a higher level floor.

 

  It was much quieter there. She found the room quickly: through the shades she saw that Edward was alone there. Quorra knocked and entered the room. He was lying in the bed with his eyes open. He was unharmed: he had a simple finger sensor heart monitor on, and the monitor itself was beeping quietly in the corner, according to a healthy heart rate. But Edward’s face was empty and he did not react when Quorra approached him.

 

  “Edward,” she said. She sat down on the edge of the bed; she leaned ahead and touched his face. “Edward…”

 

  The door burst open and a security guard rushed in. He must have seen her through the window – he must have been so irritated, because she could enter while he had walked away. The guard was wearing the uniform of a private security company; he was not working for the hospital.

 

  Quorra jumped on her feet before the guard got there. She forced herself not to fight when he grabbed her arm and began to drag her outside.

 

  “Please,” she whispered. “Just tell me how he is.”

 

  There were no answers: the guard let her go once they were out of the room. The security guard closed the door and stood in front of it; he looked at the side. Quorra turned her head as well: a doctor was talking to somebody there, at the end of the hall. It was an old man in a grey suit and when he looked at Quorra, she recognized him immediately, even though they had never met before.

 

  Edward Dillinger. Had he known about Junior’s plans or he had found it only later? Quorra thought that it would be the latter – Junior had probably wanted to prove himself to his father as well.

 

  In a hurry she walked to the elevator. She knew they were looking at her as she stepped inside and for that she managed to hold back the tears until the doors closed.

 

 

X.

 

  “Tomorrow,” said Sam and looked out on the window of the administration building. “I will reload the lost programs.”

 

  He turned back at Clu. The system administrator nodded shortly. That was their first meeting since the breach: Sam had come straight from the Arcade, riding through quiet, mourning streets.

 

  “Dillinger is gone,” he said. “Should he recover, the ENCOM lawyers will fry him. And I will move the server room again, out from the building. There will be no such attack ever again.”

 

  Clu nodded again. Sam knew that he was waiting: for the system administrator there had been a longer period of time since the attack; Clu had seen the recovery and the life, getting back to normal.

 

  “You know who came,” said Clu. “And what he took.”

 

  “I know,” replied Sam. “And I will get it back.”

 

  “When?”

 

  “On Monday. One and a half day from now.”

 

  “Why that late?”

 

  “Because…” started Sam and then he stopped. He sighed. “Because now Alan knows about the Grid. This is partially the reason why we are moving again. Because while he was always my mentor and friend, the events that took place here last night, change everything. And I can not run to his house with demands.”

 

  He glanced at the view.

 

  “I will get it back,” he said. “The truth is, he can not put that program anywhere. Also, he signed a paper and if anybody, he honors contracts and given words. But again, I can’t rush it, for the sake of the system’s safety.”

 

  Clu did not reply. He did not seem to be happy with the answer, but he did not protest – he must have understood the reasoning behind.

 

  They worked. Time was flying and the duties distracted the boy – at least something to divert his thoughts. He would work during the weekend and tomorrow he would reload the dead programs, Jayden amongst them. It did not feel like cheating, he thought, it felt like fixing a mistake that should have never happened.

 

  Sam watched the warden’s memories from the server room earlier: he felt he owed Jayden that much. She had suffered fatal injuries when the bomb had hit. She had been lying on the floor in the great hall when Tron had escaped; and Sam was stunned to see the encounter. First he did not understand why Jayden had given her disc to Tron; had she become a traitor at the end? Then he realized that it was the last act of loyalty toward Sam, an attempt to save the prisoner’s life – because Jayden had known how her User felt, she had known it before Sam had admitted it even to himself. And he watched Tron’s memories as well: it was difficult and it gave him the chills with all its frightening details – and then with Alan Bradley’s appearance, with the sadness in Alan’s eyes when he looked at the program.

 

  Before his departure he looked at the city once more. Safe once again, waiting for all the loud noises and laughter to return. It would happen, soon, Sam thought as the portal activated and brought him back to the server room. He closed the repaired doors and locks. Two days, he was thinking and everything would be back to normal, the way it had used to be – two days and he would be in his bed in the restored Palace, and he would be holding Tron in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * to be concluded - final chapter is coming


	18. The Departure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * reference to the prequel: Gaijin

I.

 

  “It is my fault,” she said and she closed her eyes. Alan Bradley looked at her. He had just finished talking a minute earlier and Lora’s first words surprised him.

 

  “You didn’t know about it,” he said. “Nobody knew where Flynn had gone: how were you supposed to know that?”

 

  “No…” said Lora and shook her head. She rubbed her temples. “It is not about his disappearance. When he came back… That was when I should have been thinking, instead of acting like…”

 

  She stood up suddenly and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Alan stayed in the living room, sitting in an armchair. He knew that she had been referring to her old relationship with Kevin Flynn. Lora had never mentioned it throughout the years, but it had been always there, the silent resentment and then the straight out bitterness after Flynn’s return – the hurt feelings of an old lover. She would have never voiced those feelings, Alan knew that: yet it was the reason why Lora considered Flynn’s disappearance and later his refusal to provide explanations twice the betrayal.

 

  “You were right,” she said when she sat down, somewhat calmer. “When you didn’t turn your back at him. I should have done the same: I should have listened. And if not to him, then to the girl. And then she could have come and talk to us, instead of going to Dillinger. Flynn said she was his kid: and since when do we blame the child for the father’s mistakes? It is my fault, not yours. She went and found you when she needed help the most.”

 

  Alan Bradley did not reply. Lora nodded to herself.

 

  “I didn’t quite expect you to believe me,” he admitted. “Not without seeing what I saw.”

 

  “I wouldn’t believe it to anybody else,” she agreed. “But then, as unbelievable, it makes sense. And it explains Tokyo.”*

 

  “Yes,” replied Alan. He had not thought of that before and the idea sent his mind racing. “He will come tomorrow again.”

 

  “What about Sam?”

 

  “Monday. I have time to make a decision until then.”

 

  Lora laughed.

 

  “You’ve made your decision already,” she said.

 

  “True,” replied Alan Bradley.

 

 

II.

 

  The returning programs arrived from the direction of the sea: the seemingly endless line of the approaching group reminded Sam of the myths and chronicles that had recorded the beginning of the ISO invasion. He had reloaded the programs and had made them appear outside of the city: right after he entered the Grid and watched the process from the top of the administration tower. The surrounding rooftops were full of programs: everybody was looking at the direction of the newcomers. Latter ones were the Grid citizens, that had lost their lives during the siege and were now resurrected from the backup files of the computer.

 

  Sam was walking. He forced himself not to rush; and it would have been impossible anyway once the people in the city began to stream toward the arriving programs. Everybody was looking for their friends and loved ones and soon the happy yells and cries of recognition filled the space. Sam was looking for the warden, and he found her, at the other side of the enormous crowd. Jayden was walking in the back, amongst other high ranked executives, that had evidently appointed themselves to escort the group to the city. Her appearance was the same as it had used to be: she smiled when she spotted Sam, walked there and put her hand on his shoulder without saying a word. Sam smiled back and he did not let the stinging in his heart show on his face. This program was not Jayden: she looked like the warden and had Jayden’s personality traits, but it was not the same entity; Jayden had been reserved and she had never touched the User before. While Sam did not mind the gesture at all, it let him know that he had not cheated death. The warden was gone and dead for good, along with her own features, along with her loyalty toward Sam. He remembered Clu’s word, when the system administrator had told him that these recovered programs would have the same appearance and memories that their original versions had had, but they would never be exactly the same.

 

  “New souls,” he whispered to himself. There was no loud celebration when they returned to the city; programs just went back to their tasks and duties. They were not fooled, Sam realized and that idea saddened him once more. He had seen Clu after the siege only twice; there were no messages coming and the downtown workshops were also closed. Sam knew that the system administrator was waiting. Life had never stopped in the Grid before nor did it now: barely more than a day had passed since the worst disaster in the history of the digital realm. There was no point or reason to hurry things, yet Sam understood the silence, the expectation. He had been never really thinking about the previous thousand cycles, not since Kevin Flynn had left the Grid, because it was terrifying, a length of time which was out of human comprehension. Throughout those cycles Clu had always had Tron – and that was another thing, impossible to even try to understand. A human relationship would have never survived anything like that; but Clu had not given up on Tron; the system administrator had gone against the rules, against the apparent refusal, maybe against his own directions as well for this program. Whether that need had come from Kevin Flynn or had it been Clu’s own emotion, it did not really make a difference. It did not change the fact that Tron had been always here, part of the system, this way or another.

 

  At the end of their second meeting Clu brought out a white identity disc – and Sam did not recognize it, because the only time he had handled Tron’s disc before, it had been the black disc of a warrior. When activated, the inner ring of the white disc lit up slowly with pale blue light and it hit Sam the way it had hit him seeing Tron for the first time after the program’s reversion. He looked through the memories and tried to stay calm, because he knew that Clu was watching him. He saw the attack through the program’s eyes; and it did not make sense… Suddenly nothing made sense. It made no sense for a program with no ability to fight, to run into the heart of the battle – and then to strike down and win anyway, against all odds. And Sam did not want to learn what was behind their unexpected victory. This was not the way he wished to get the answer to his question: the question he had asked from Tron so many times while the program had been falling apart from the pain in his hands. It was not reasonable, not logical for a program to run into his certain fate, to risk his life for others, that did not care about him. To offer himself to a User, in exchange for nothing else, but pain and betrayal. It was out of love, now Sam knew that. He did not want to see Alan Bradley, through Tron’s eyes; he did not want to see the sorrow in Alan’s eyes. Tron had not complained to Alan Bradley and had not asked for his help – and yet Alan had offered a hand and had taken the program anyway. Upon their short interaction Sam could not even imagine how his meeting with Alan would go: he only knew that he would get Tron back.

 

  So they were waiting now for the next day.

 

  Sam went back in his suite in the restored Palace. The lower levels of the building were full of life once more; up in the suite everything was the way it had been before the attack. Except for the place was empty now: it was quiet and brighter than it had been. He had never had to come home to an empty suite before, Sam realized. He sat down on the edge of the bed. He had been working; in the server room and out of that, looking for a new place to relocate the facility, listing all the resources he would have to transport and install. It had been a fine distraction, Sam was thinking, at least his mind had not been on the upcoming conversation with Alan Bradley, on how things would be once he brought Tron back. He felt like he was losing control and was going back to uncertainty, to the inertness, the way he had spent most of his life. Yet it was not the worst part; the worst part was to sit here alone and to remember what he had had – and to promise silently that he would be better, should he be given one more chance, with nobody around to hear his words.

 

 

III.

 

  The program looked up. He put away the book he was holding and stood up. The place was quiet, except for the music that was playing. He was the only one around, checking the rooms and storage places – but all he found was more and more data files, books, videos and music. One time he heard an unusual noise and hurried his way there: in the hall that connected the storage rooms, a rectangular machine was moving along the wall, sweeping and repairing the minuscule cracks of the system. There was nobody behind the machine; it operated by its own and it took Tron a moment to understand that the construct itself was a program.

 

  “Hey,” he said. The machine rolled away unaffectedly and disappeared behind a corner. Tron was looking after it for a moment and then he went back to the room. He rarely saw other programs and they were always the same: they looked like various machines and they did not seem to have any kind of consciousness. They did not interact with Tron and he did not see them communicating with each other.

 

  He sat down next to the wall. He was surrounded there by the files he had collected from the other folders. So many books! Most of them were about programming, history and art and there were a few novels as well. The video files were home movies and films and it was more than fascinating to see so many Users of various appearances. It was interesting and somewhat sad at the same time: the world outside seemed to be a dangerous place. So much violence – Tron had used to imagine it differently.

 

  He dozed off and wakened soon after with a twitch. He glanced around nervously before relaxing. For a moment Tron was not sure where he was: it was still a very fresh experience to be safe, not to be afraid of others coming, not to be forced to do things he did not want to. He jumped on his feet easily. It was overwhelming to be in possession of his old power and speed once more, even if there was not much use of those capabilities here. And he did not know if he could use them again; he did not know what was going to happen. It was safe and very boring to be here – but he could deal with the loneliness, Tron told himself, if that meant that he would not have to return to the Grid. Alan-One had heard him out and maybe even believed him; but Alan-One was a User and Users saw things differently, Tron had learnt that during his long existence.

 

  A soft sound came from the outside, the same noise that had come before Alan-One’s previous entry. Tron turned at the door, which opened up and the User entered the room. The program looked at him and felt the same awe which had filled him long time ago, when he had been standing under the shining beam of the communication tower.

 

  “Hey,” said Alan-One. He knew, Tron sensed it, the User had a plan for them. With great calmness Tron was standing. For the shortest moment he was touched by an intuition; with the idea of how it could have been, how their cooperation, their work together could have gone, could have shaped the Grid. But it was an elusive feeling and it was gone by the time Alan-One closed the door behind himself.

 

  “We need to talk,” said Alan-One. “Actually, I need to ask a few questions, because there is not much time left.”

 

  “He’s coming,” replied Tron. He felt calm, almost strangely so. The panic, he knew, would come later – but Alan-One did not have to see that. He wanted to show only dignity: to let the User know that he appreciated the attempt and did not blame Alan-One for not being able to protect him. “Sam Flynn is coming.”

 

  Alan-One was looking at him confusedly; then the perplexed expression gave its place to regret.

 

  “Son,” he said, shaking his head immediately – at his poor choice of words? Tron did not understand it anyway and he was nervously waiting for the User to continue. “You two will not meet ever again if I can help it… And I can pretty much help it.”

 

  Alan-One took a step closer.

 

  “I know that whatever you said, just part of the story,” he said. “And it is fine, because I don’t think I am ready to hear all that. But I am sorry about it. And I am sorry that this is the face he showed to you, that he was anything else than gracious… Anything else than he has been with others. I will deal with Sam, later. My concern, what I want to talk about, is this place.”

 

  Tron looked at him curiously.

 

  “What I mean,” said the User, “that this place is obviously very different from where you came from. Where you were part of a whole society, contrary to this place, where you are alone.”

 

  “Yes.”

 

  “I told you that this place can be only better than that and I still mean it. However I don’t know how fine it will be on a longer run. Not because of the complete isolation: it would be my pleasure to connect in and interact with you. Not to mention it would be the greatest research ever in the field of artificial and alien intelligence. Why, we could locate others like you, there could be a new world building up here… Hopefully a much safer one than the one you left behind.”

 

  Tron was silent. The ‘but’ was coming and he was expecting it. The User looked at him and his eyes were full of sorrow.

 

  “But?” asked Tron.

 

  “I honestly don’t think that we have time for any kind of experiment, research, of a longer run. Not because of Sam: yes, he breaks into places to take things he considers as his, but he would not try to take something from me, not by force. And this computer is not connected to any network, it can not be hacked from the outside. The problem is, all the others: that the Grid is not a secret anymore. Junior, the person behind the attack you stopped, is at a medical facility right now, in a catatonic state. They can’t tell what happened to him, they can’t predict whether he would wake up. Still, he is a young man and his chances are good. And when he wakes up, he will talk. And there is his father and his company, called FCon. I am convinced that they are already investigating the events that led to Junior’s hospitalization. The older Dillinger is no fool: he took over ENCOM once and he is aware of Flynn’s experiments. It is just the question of time for him to put the pieces together. And when that happens, they will come after us. They will come after the company, Sam and me. For them this is all about money and power and considering the inventions that ENCOM gave the world in the last few months… We can pretty much tell that whoever owns ENCOM, whoever controls the Grid, that has the world in his hands. I would not be surprised if that computer would be relocated right now as we are speaking: Sam will move it and it will be out of reach. But you will not, not if you stay here, in a closed system. They will find out the details, what happened in the ENCOM building that night. If not tomorrow then the next week, but they will know. If you choose to stay I will do my best to keep you safe, but again, this is a closed system. There is no way out and if somebody gains access to the computer…”

 

  “I understand,” said Tron, considering. “You said, it is my choice. What is the other option?”

 

  The User took a deep breath.

 

  “I can let you go,” he said. “I can connect the computer to the internet. By now I am quite sure that you can do it. If you decide to go that way, I will give you the latest updates I would give a program for maximum efficiency – I believe that is what manifests as speed and strength for you. As well as information about the outside world.” Alan-One pointed at the books on the floor. “Whatever you did not gain already.”

 

  Tron was thinking.

 

  “What is outside?” he asked.

 

  “I don’t know. I don’t think that it is entirely possible for me or any other human to go out and check. But there is something that happened ten years ago during Lora’s stay in Japan. We still don’t have the answers to what took place there, because there is no rational answer other than at one point a program or an entity with artificial intelligence acted without people involved. Whatever that individual did, technically saved Lora and most probably my job and credibility as well. Now, seeing Flynn’s Grid from the inside I believe that it is what happened and there are more AIs outside, possibly a whole living cyberspace.”

 

  Alan-One stopped for a moment.

 

  “I can not be sure,” he said. “I don’t have guaranties. Despite of all the updates and precautions, there can be compatibility issues and you might die in the moment you leave. Maybe I am wrong and it is empty outside and you will be just as lonely with no chances to find others similar to you.”

 

  “But you don’t believe that,” the program replied. “You wouldn’t make this offer otherwise.”

 

“That is correct. I am quite certain that you will make it. It is just, nobody ever has been there. I want you to know that there are no guaranties, there is a real risk.”

 

  Tron nodded slowly.

 

  “If I choose to go that way…” he said. “What will be my job?”

 

  The User was watching him quietly. Tron was waiting.

 

  “What are your orders?” he asked again.

 

  “There are no orders,” replied Alan-One. “You can go.”

 

  “I don’t understand.”

 

  Alan-One straightened himself and looked the program in the eyes. He was speaking slowly as if he wanted to make sure that he would be understood.

 

  “People create tools and write programs to make their own job easier. Tools and programs don’t have feelings or at least not in the world I knew until yesterday. A tool is a property. Somebody with human-like intelligence is not and can not be a property.”

 

  “You wrote me.”

 

  “Yes. And you went and saved the world and the lives of people I hold most dear right after my family. You don’t owe me.”

 

  Tron was looking at Alan Bradley doubtingly.

 

  “Upon what I saw, you don’t need any kind of directions,” said Alan. “But since many things have changed, here is what I ask you: do not hurt people. Protect the weak, let them be human or other creatures you might face out there. This was your original programming, since the beginning. And now I ask you to do something in another way. You don’t have to obey any orders, should they come from Users or anybody else. Do not follow orders, unless you want to, unless you agree with the purpose and the individual that needs your cooperation. And finally, you must protect yourself. Run away, when possible and fight, when there is no escape. You can protect yourself by all means.”

 

  They were staring at each other. Tron blinked and nodded slowly.

 

  “However,” said the User, “there is one thing I must ask you. And for that I apologize in advance. Not because of the question, but because I know that you are not able to lie. And this one time I have to take advantage of this feature.”

 

  “What is the question?” asked the program. He was excited: Alan-One was challenging him.

 

  “If I let you go,” said Alan Bradley, “will you go after Sam Flynn or any other human and attempt to harm or kill them? Will you ever try to seek revenge?”

 

  “No,” replied Tron immediately, stunned. “Why would I?”

 

  Alan Bradley was staring at him silently for long before responding as if he was just as surprised by the answer as Tron had been by the question.

 

  “Because,” he said slowly, “because that is what a User would do. And I could not set a vengeful program free and let it roam in the cyberspace. I had to ask. Again, I apologize.”

 

  “It is fine,” replied the program with a shrug. Alan Bradley was still staring at him.

 

  “How is it possible for you?” asked the User. “Not to want revenge? To move forward already?”

 

  “Why, what is revenge?”

 

  “To hurt somebody for what they have done to you before.”

 

  “Right. It would not make any difference and would not change what happened.”

 

  “It does not change it for people either and we still go out and take our revenge,” said Alan-One, insisting. He seemed to know that the program was evading the question and Tron was aware of that.

 

  “Then it is not part of my programming.”

 

  “No, it is not. As it was not in the programming in any of the people in your city. But it did not help much, apparently, they did change, and some of them did that without reprogramming. They made their own choices.”

 

  “Then I made my choice too,” replied Tron. He did not feel like saying the words, for he feared it would sound broken, lacking the old grace – but his User was looking at him expectantly, waiting for an explanation. “I fight for the Users.”

 

  Alan Bradley nodded. He was getting ready to leave.

 

  “I will come back later,” he said. “For now, there is one more thing I have to ask. Kevin Flynn is coming by today. He asked for the chance to meet you.”

 

  Tron blinked. Suddenly he thought of many questions – and remained silent at the end. Seeing that he would not speak, Alan-One went on.

 

  “I will only let him use the device if you agree to see him,” he said. “Otherwise he won’t come.”

 

  “Fine,” said Tron.

 

  “Are you fine with talking to him?”

 

  “Yes,” the program replied. “Why not.”

 

 

IV.

 

  Kevin Flynn knew that Lora Bradley would be at the house before he got out of the car. He saw that there were two vehicles at the Bradley house: one is in the open garage and one parked on the driveway.

 

  “This will take a while,” he told his driver. He walked to the house and knocked. It was Lora who opened the door and they were standing there for a minute without saying a word. That was the first time Flynn saw her since his return. Flynn remembered, he remembered the centuries he had spent on the Grid; that he had thought he would never see her again. Her face was cold and her expression was almost hostile; yet Lora moved, so that he could enter the house. They sat down in the living room and Flynn was talking once more. It was easier now, to tell the whole story for the second time.

 

  “Is this,” asked Lora once he finished, “was it so hard?”

 

  She was angry, but then, Flynn was thinking, what else could she be? Most of her life she had not been given credit for her work: it had been always other people that had gotten the praise and the limelight. Lora just learned that he was one of them: how could she be calm?

 

  “Remember,” Lora had told him one thousand years earlier, “this laser is my life’s work.”

 

  Kevin Flynn looked at her, straight in the eye: he owed her with that, if he could do that while lying to her for years. It had been so easy, even easier than it had been with Alan, because her ambition had been quiet, serene. And he remembered how it had felt to see hundreds of people lining up and waiting for hours to see him at a public appearance and the delight on their faces when it had been their turn for a signature. He remembered the hotels all around the world, the elegant suites above the greatest cities with all the amenities, the private jets and how it had felt to know that he would never have to look at the price tags ever in his life. Would not have Lora wanted that too, for herself and her family? Even if he decided to be honest, to pay back some of the debt, that would not make any difference, would not change a single minute of the past thirty years.

 

  Lora stood up. She walked to the front door, picked up her car keys and left. Soon after Flynn heard her car starting outside. He was dumbfounded; he looked at Alan Bradley, who was sitting on the other side of the smoking table. Alan showed no surprise. Lora knew everything, Flynn realized, Alan Bradley had told her all. She left, so that she could be alone with her anger – and to give them space to do what needed to be done. He turned back to Alan.

 

  “And now?” asked Alan.

 

  “Honestly, I don’t know.”

 

  “Did you talk to Sam?”

 

  “You know that he would not pick it up for me.”

 

  Alan Bradley nodded.

 

  “Right,” he said.

 

  “Alan… Can I talk to him?”

 

  “Yes. He agreed to see you.”

 

  “He…” Kevin Flynn fell silent upon realizing that Alan Bradley had asked for Tron’s permission to let him, Flynn use Alan’s computer. Alan’s face revealed that his friend understood his confusion.

 

  “You know,” said Alan, “Lora is mad at you for what you did to us, what you did to people. At this point I am not sure if I am not more aggravated about you and for the matter of fact, you and Sam as well, recognizing that you were dealing with non-human life forms with developed intelligence and never even considering to set boundaries, to respect their opinions or ask for consent.”

 

  “Did Tron tell you that?”

 

  “No. And I find it amazing how telling is the way he held things back. No, he didn’t tell that and there are things I know because of the manner he avoided to talk about them. I know what happened, because I saw how they kept him and because of his absolute reluctance to talk about it.”

 

  “Alan… you are knocking on open doors. I know that now.”

 

  “I’m happy to hear that. Because I will let you use the device now. You know the machine: virtual reality. No physical contact, not the way it used to be in your system. But you will have your voice. What I am trying to say, I will connect once you are done and if I find him even mildly upset, then this would be the last time you are invited to my house.”

 

  “I understand.”

 

  Alan’s study upstairs was tidy and well lit. The device was left in the middle of the room, connected to the computer with several wires.

 

  “Alan,” he said, after his friend explained him the details and helped him to put the gloves and the glasses on. “I really appreciate this.”

 

  “Just… do this right, okay?” asked Alan Bradley before he left the room.

 

  First it felt annoying, to see the shades of the room behind the digital projection: then Flynn got used to it quickly. The inside of the computer appeared as a white hall and he walked along the wall and opened the door with a light touch of his gloved hand. There he stopped. The program was inside the room, watching an old documentary, which was projected on the wall. The film stopped when Flynn entered and Tron looked at him.

 

  Kevin Flynn saw the shock on Tron’s face: first he thought it was surprise. It took him a moment to figure that this was the first time when Tron saw him since the coup: the first time that the program saw him old. While he had tried to explain aging to the program, Tron had not seen him growing old and he had only met Alan later. Now he was looking at Kevin Flynn with his lips parted. Flynn was watching him silently as well. He felt shaken, though for different reasons. The last time he had seen Tron it had been in the safehouse, where he had been handed Gem’s identity disc; and there he had seen a broken program in shackles, with his integrity shattered. Tron was entirely different now: confident and very calm again. His look, that ageless beauty took Flynn’s breath once more. Yes, he thought, of course Alan was right about all the mistakes he had made back in the years – but that had not changed the fact that the time he had spent with Tron had been the happiest years of his life. After his wife’s death Flynn had had no real hopes or illusions about happiness and yet it was after that, that he found a fragile and short-lived balance between real life and the Grid. During that time he had had everything: and for that the following downfall had been even more painful.

 

  Tron was wearing human clothes with no disc port and Flynn was wondering if the program or Alan Bradley had noticed that new feature. Alan had been able to update his program after he had moved him from the Grid and it meant that Tron did not need a disc anymore to receive information. Was that because of the different and much newer system he had been placed into? Kevin Flynn was analyzing the situation, even though he knew it did not really matter anymore: he would never work on Tron’s codes ever again.

 

  They were standing there for long. None of them talked: Flynn wanted to speak, he wanted to apologize. But then: Tron knew that he was sorry and the program was looking at him with his strangely human looking eyes so intently that it made Flynn speechless. When Tron finally moved Flynn could not think what the program would do: not until Tron stepped close to him and wrapped his arms around him. It was a static sensation; it did not feel like a real touch. Flynn lifted his arms and put them around Tron – and it broke his heart that beyond the projection he saw his hands, grabbing at the thin air in Alan Bradley’s office.

 

  When it ended Tron took a step back. His eyes were very bright and the program seemed to be relieved. It was done, Flynn thought, everything was done now. He sensed that was seeing Tron for the last time in his life, he knew that before the program opened his lips.

 

  “Please tell Alan-One that I am ready.”

 

 

V.

 

  It was an ordinary Monday morning. Alan Bradley stopped his car in the underground garage of the ENCOM building and then took the elevator to his office. Up there he walked to the large window and looked around. Light haze covered the buildings and down on the street the traffic was busy. He would miss this, Alan Bradley was thinking.

 

  His secretary arrived and she came in with a cup of coffee a few minutes later. He thanked for it and asked her not to transfer any phone calls; and also to cancel all his meetings for the day. Surprised she left and Alan Bradley heard her making phone calls outside. He sat down at his desk, at the dark console and brought out a single sheet of paper from his briefcase.

 

  Sam came a few minutes later. Alan Bradley saw him walking to the secretary’s desk. The boy’s face was tired and grim. Alan Bradley picked up a pen and signed the paper that was lying in front of him. Sam entered the office.

 

  “Hi Alan,” he said. “Just give it to me and I am out of here.”

 

  Alan Bradley was watching him quietly. He had come from the battlefield, Alan thought, he had fought and he had won.

 

  “I can not give it to you,” he replied. Sam shook his head.

 

  “Seriously…” he said. “I don’t want to play this game. I want back what you have taken from me and to go back to my work.”

 

  “Sam… I didn’t take anything that was yours…” Alan Bradley started. Sam reached in his pocket, brought out a paper and threw it on the desk angrily.

 

  “You removed a program from my computer, a program that you sold to me months ago,” he said. Alan Bradley saw his secretary turning at the office nervously, distracted by the loud, indignant talk.

 

  “I didn’t know what I was signing. And an intelligent creature can not be the subject of such deal anyway.”

 

  “I’m not expecting anything like that. I want a program. Programs, as you are maybe aware of that, have no feelings or personality.”

 

  “Sam, don’t do this. I was there, I saw it. I saw the city. I witnessed the battle.”

 

  “I don’t care what you think you saw. Give the hard drive back to me and I will walk out from here. I am willing to forget this.”

 

  Alan Bradley reached into his briefcase, took out Junior’s hard drive and put it on the desk. Sam reached out at it – then he stopped halfway.

 

  “It is empty,” he said. He had no way of knowing that, thought Alan, yet it was a statement, not a question.

 

  “Yes,” he replied. “There is nothing on it. I can not give you that program.”

 

  “Fine. You know that I can prove that you took it from my computer, don’t you? You know that this is corporate espionage.”

 

  “Sam… What are you talking about?”

 

  “What I am talking about is that I want my property back,” said Sam loudly. The secretary outside turned at the office again. “What I want is that people would stop lying to me. That people, that are supposed to be loyal to me, would not lie, cheat and steal from me.”

 

  “Sam, you are very unjust. Please, calm down. I know that you are upset about Junior’s break in, but don’t be that quick with calling names. I have not lied to you and have not taken anything that was yours.”

 

  “You took my program. Ever since you’ve been reinstated, you’ve been using the company to achieve your personal goals. You hired your friend and accomplice, who’s been spying after ENCOM and collecting confidential information about the company since decades, with your active support. It was always you behind the picture, posing as a guardian, appearing as a wise old friend to the public, even managing to mislead me throughout the years. I never mattered; you just needed me so that you could stay close to the fire until my father returned.”

 

  Alan Bradley was watching Sam silently. He was furious beyond words, but also dumbfounded by whatever had been told. Sam Flynn was standing in front of him the way he has really been: with his genuine goodness and brilliant mind – but also with his paranoia, twisted logic and great entitlement. Now Alan understood the Flynns’ tragedy; and it was devastating for him to acknowledge his own part in that tragedy. He stood up.

 

  “Give the program back to me,” said Sam in a hoarse voice. “Or I’ll destroy you.”

 

  “I’m sure you can do that,” replied Alan Bradley. “I am sorry that you feel this way. I am very, very sorry that you decided not to share these concerns with me much earlier. I could have provided you with explanations. And I am also sorry that you kept the Grid in secret. I could have helped, things could have happened differently. For now this is all I can tell you, because I am afraid I would say something I would deeply regret later, should I continue now.”

 

  Sam looked at him with hollow eyes.

 

  “I can not give you Tron, because I don’t have him anymore,” said Alan Bradley.

 

  “Where is he?” asked Sam.

 

  “I don’t know. I let him go.”

 

  Sam’s expression was angry, offended and Alan Bradley knew that he thought Alan was lying.

 

  “I connected the computer to the internet and told him to go and not to look back. I have no contact with him, nothing that could be traced back.”

 

  Sam looked at him as if Alan had punched him. Alan Bradley could not stand that look and for that he glanced away. He picked up the paper from his desk and gave it to the boy.

 

  “What is this?” asked Sam and his tone almost stopped Alan. Almost.

 

  “My resignation from the company.”

 

  “Give it to Flynn.”

 

  “What?” asked Alan Bradley.

 

  “I’m giving ENCOM to him. The company attorneys are working on the papers already and it will go public soon. So you can stay. This is what you both wanted anyway.”

 

  “Sam…” said Alan Bradley. The boy’s expression was so hurt, so aggravated that he had to look away again. He took his briefcase and his jacket.

 

  “You can still prefer your claim, I am aware of that,” he said. “If you want to go that way, press charges. I can not give you Tron; nobody can.”

 

  He turned away and walked out from the office. His secretary was standing behind her desk, shocked. Alan Bradley was hoping that she could keep her job after this scene. He stepped in the elevator and pressed the button for the garage. His face was stern, yet he felt eternally grateful that Sam did not come out from the office and did not look at him before the doors closed.

 

 

One month later

 

 

  Quorra’s eyes opened and she looked at the white ceiling of the room. The squeeze on her arm eased and the blood pressure gauge was put away. Quorra looked at dr. Kaur.

 

  “Perfect measures,” the doctor said with a smile. They were done for the day and she was good to go and spend her time the way she wished. The new schedule began three weeks earlier; by then Quorra had been told that ENCOM would be returned to Kevin Flynn and that Alan Bradley had resigned. She should have been happy, relieved – but she only felt grief. One morning, shortly after her return from the Grid she was sitting in the chair in an examination room of the ENCOM Pharma building. A doctor came and took blood from her and then Quorra was left alone. She was waiting, and the minutes of waiting grew too long. Finally the door opened and dr. Kaur came in. The doctor walked there and sat down next to Quorra, on a rolling stool. Dr. Kaur’s smiled, but the expression was concerned, almost shocked.

 

  “Something is wrong?” asked Quorra. “What about the examinations?”

 

  “There are no examinations anymore,” said dr. Kaur and put her hand on Quorra’ arm. And Quorra knew what she was going to say, she suddenly realized it. She was with child: Quorra had sensed it during the laser transmission from the Grid. She was standing there under the beam of light, looking at her own codes emerging, along with a secondary line. The other line of codes was smaller, shorter; unfinished maybe? Back then Quorra was not sure and it was not exactly the time and place to stop and start thinking about it. And now, that her assumption was confirmed by dr. Kaur’s words, Quorra knew how it had happened… how fool she had been. It had been during one of their visits in the nail salon, when Quorra had overheard a conversation between the technician girls.

 

  “Last night I told him we did not have to be careful,” one of the girls whispered to the other. “We had so much fun.”

 

  And they snickered. Quorra thought she understood what they were talking about – and next time when she met Edward, she said the same.

 

  “We don’t have to be careful, not today,” she told him. And Edward looked at her and smiled … But she did not even know what those words meant. Profoundly naïve, unimaginably wise, Flynn had called her once; and Quorra could not imagine what his opinion would be now, as she was making the dumbest and most horrible mistakes one by one.

 

  But he was not angry when they met: when dr. Kaur called him and he came in a rush. He was genuinely concerned for her and Quorra understood his worry quickly: Flynn thought she would not want the child, not after all that had happened.

 

  “I will keep it,” she said. “It’s my kid.”

 

  Dr. Kaur and Flynn looked at each other. Dr. Kaur nodded.

 

  “Then we are done here,” she said. She did not ask who the father was: she did not ask anything. Quorra’s removal from the experiments would have meant that her work at the company would be halted or finished - and yet her only worry was Quorra’s wellbeing. Quorra never loved her that much.

 

  “No,” she said. “We are not done.”

 

  Dr. Kaur looked at her patiently.

 

  “You are expecting,” she said. “Even if it would not take such toll on your body as it does on a regular person, we can not keep on stabbing you for blood and tissues.”

 

  “Maybe not. But I can still participate. They would still take blood and other samples from me during the pregnancy, don’t they?”

 

  “Well, yes, but…"

 

  “I want to stay part of the experiments as long as it does not affect the child and eventually be back on board the way I used to be. I will not let the work stop because of me.”

 

  “Quorra,” said Kevin Flynn. “We are done here. You have done great. But it ends here.”

 

  “No. The results of the company are my results too. If they can produce drugs that save peoples’ lives or ease the suffering that is my result as well. It is a proof that there was a point for me to come here and a reason for the entire wait. This is what I want.”

 

  They were staring at her, stunned by the emphasis she had spoken with. They looked at each other again.

 

  “Well,” said dr. Kaur. “We can try and then see…”

 

  “Yes,” Quorra replied. “Thank you.”

 

  “It is my child,” she told Flynn later, when they were alone at home. “But it is also Edward’s child. I will leave your house, if that is what you want me to do.”

 

  “This house is your home,” he said. He was placid: by then they had learnt that ENCOM would be returned to him shortly. She knew that it meant nothing for him now; it was obvious that the Grid and the laser would not be part of the offering and most importantly, that Sam Flynn initiated the procedure out of pure hate and spite. They knew it from Alan Bradley that the young Flynn was furious about the break in and the attempt on his life – and, Quorra thought, was not he right? Kevin Flynn was calm; he accepted both his children with their anger and impossible actions.

 

  “Will you help me to keep it secret from them?” she asked. “From the Dillingers.”

 

  “I will.”

 

  “And it can not be part of any experiments,” she continued. “Not, unless he or she decides to participate, after coming to age.”

 

  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

 

  Quorra looked at Kevin Flynn and saw him once more as the teacher and creator she had known on the Grid and for whom she would have given her life. She would have died for him now just the same.

 

  “Thank you,” she told dr. Kaur in the examination room. Quorra stood up, picked up her purse and said good bye. She walked. An ending, Quorra was thinking: their lives went on and everything seemed to become more and more messy, more and more difficult – but there was redemption as well. She had been told that Alan Bradley had let Tron go; and sometimes, when she was lying in her bed at night, Quorra imagined that, the departure and the coming great adventures. None of that she would know about or be a part of it and that idea was sobering.

 

  A car was waiting for her in front of the building. There was a blonde woman sitting behind the wheel and talking on the phone while she was waiting for Quorra.

 

  Lora Baines-Bradley.

 

  “No,” said Quorra vehemently, when she was told for the first time that Lora wanted to meet her. “Please… She is doing it out of regret toward you and sorry for me, doesn’t she?”

 

  “Of course,” replied Kevin Flynn.

 

  “I don’t want people to feel obligated to treat me nicely.”

 

  “It’s your decision,” said Flynn. “But consider, that if somebody, she deserves a second chance.”

 

  Quorra did so and met Lora; and understood it during their first meeting, that she did not have to fight; she did not have to refuse Lora’s attention. Why would she refuse the kind words and actions? It was not like that there were that many people looking after her on their own accord. And, most importantly, Quorra needed friends, she needed allies. She hoped… she knew that Edward would wake up soon and while she knew that that day would bring great joy and relief to her, she also knew that it would launch a series of events, that it would throw a sparkle into the gunpowder barrel. Quorra needed to be ready for that day.

 

  Lora put down her phone and smiled at Quorra.

 

  “What about a breakfast at the pavilion?” asked Quorra.

 

  “Sounds like a plan,” Lora replied and started the car.

 

 

***

 

  Silence. Darkness. He was lying on his bed, fully clothed, with closed eyes. Clu was getting ready to return to the city, to his usual duties. It had been cycles now that all the factories and workshops had reopened; and it had also been a while since a digital thunder crossed the night sky once more – the signal of the system reboot. Sam Flynn had moved the Grid from the ENCOM building, to a new, secret location.

 

  “Dad has the company again,” the young User said when he came to visit after the reboot. “The new place has the servers, the computer and the laser only.”

 

  Clu looked at Sam. The User appeared to be exhausted and sick.

 

  “There will be more,” he said. “Engineers and programmers are coming from ENCOM, people that were working on the previous release and want to participate in our work. But that will come a few weeks later and for now I am on my own.”

 

  Clu nodded. Sam was overworked; but there was something else behind that bitter, grim expression.

 

  “And then,” said Sam, “we would make the water cleaner device.”

 

  “Right,” Clu replied. He was waiting. Sam turned at him.

 

  “You know what happened,” he said. “I told you that Alan had let him go and I can’t bring him back. But I can reload a new version of Tron from the backup files. I can give that to you.”

 

  Clu looked at Sam once more. He was actually offended.

 

  “The copy is not the same program,” he said. “You know that.”

 

  “I know.”

 

  “You want the copy for yourself? Then do it. I don’t want to see that program. I want the original version.”

 

  “I can not bring him back. Even if I knew what’s outside in the cyberspace, I don’t have the means to go there.”

 

  “But I do,” replied Clu. The User was glaring at him and the system administrator saw that he understood the statement; he understood that Clu was right. Sam looked away and started to talk about something else quickly. Clu let him avert the conversation – he made his point.

 

  They worked again. Sam was pale, sickly, but he kept going and soon things began to get similar to how it had been before. Or almost; life was strangely empty, weightless now. Once created to the image of a man, Clu had long lost his interest about the real world and whatever had been outside of the Grid. Now, that he would soon request access to the User world, the system administrator wandered back to his memories about that other universe.

 

  He reached out and touched the white identity disc which was lying on the sheets next to him. Clu lifted it up and held it against his chest.

 

  “You made me interested in the User world again,” he whispered.

 

  There was work that had to be done; people were waiting on both sides of the laser. They would get their water cleaner device, Clu was thinking, soon. And then, when the User world would be overwhelmed by the impact of the device, the way it had been after the release of the energy transfer plug and the Grid would be busy with the celebration, Clu would ask for access to the outer space. Not through the laser, but the internet. He knew Tron: despite of any advice or warning he would keep an eye on his old User, there would be a connection to trace back. Even if the program had been reinstated or updated, he was not a match for Clu, for his human memories and consideration. All the system administrator needed was to be allowed to exit the Grid, and then to be able to enter on the way back – except for on the return there would be the two of them. And Sam Flynn would grant that access, Clu knew that: because Clu had never asked for anything in return for all the work and loyalty, because Sam could not tell no, even if he wanted. But he did not want to, and the system administrator knew that very well.

 

  He stood up. The container on the wall opened silently upon his touch and he placed the disc inside. Tron would need it, once brought back to the Grid. The lights of the room faded as Clu was leaving. He was entrusted with a great duty: he was to create the perfect system.

 

 

***

 

  The new facility was established in a remote area of the city. Once the home of a smaller tech company, the building and the surrounding land was standing empty in the last few years. Bought under the fictitious name of his new company, Sam had the place renovated and partially rebuilt before moving in the servers, the computer and the laser. That was the last time he had been in the ENCOM building: he did not have anything else to do there. His phone in his office would not stop ringing and his company mailbox was full: after Alan Bradley’s resignation many people sensed the coming breakdown. Several technicians and programmers offered their participation in Sam’s new project and the board members were keep on inviting him to meetings in order to try and prevent his resignation and Kevin Flynn’s subsequent return.

 

  Sam had no time to return any of those messages, though he intended to hire the ENCOM technicians that had worked for him before. They would move forward and this transition would not be a setback – at least that was what he told himself. And he managed to believe that, at least when he was busy in his own reality.

 

  It was entirely different on the Grid. Nothing changed down there; it was him, that could barely focus anymore. He would go, work, walk around, interact with programs – and it would be as if he walked in a dream. He would go home to the Palace, feeling the warden’s eyes on him: but Jayden was dead and he had cheated in the game… He would go in his suite and would try to rest, but would toss and turn in his bed sleeplessly. And he would still pretend, still hold on until he would wake up from a nightmare in his room, all alone.

 

  He was panting, covered by his own hot sweat. His hands reached out, just to grab at the cold sheets. And it broke up, he broke up finally, the words tore from his lips as a sob.

 

  “Tron,” he whispered, “My beautiful…”

 

  He could not sleep anymore, not in his empty suite and not in his downtown apartment in the city. They went out for long walks with Marv, sometimes only returning home when the first lights of the dawn began to burn the horizon. It did not help; nothing helped.

 

  Sam sat at the computer and he was staring at the screen. Clu had refused his offer, he had not wanted a copy of Tron for himself: Sam was not that sure if his own choice would be the same. He looked at the codes on the screen. Just a line of commands and a copy of the program would appear on the Grid. And it would be a perfect copy, it would look the way Tron had looked like when Sam had seen him for the last time and would have the same memories. It would not be the same program, but it would be pretty close – was not Jayden a great replica? It would have the original program’s affectionate and kind nature; and it would belong to him, only to Sam, because Clu would not want to see the new program at all. He could delete his related memories, the way he had planned to do with Tron, so the program would not remember the suffering he had gone through in Sam’s hands. And soon he would fully belong to Sam. It would not even require further manipulation: Sam should just treat him right, the way he had failed to treat Tron. The program would be there and wait for Sam when he would enter the Grid; and that idea almost prompted Sam to start typing and initiate the process.

 

  He was motionless, with his burning eyes on the screen. It was all he wanted… but not with a replica. His hands did not move: soon Sam stood up from the console and left. One day later he would wake up from a short sleep suddenly, unable to breathe. He had had some confusing dream about circuits and lights, a world unseen by people. It was a great land, an almost endless territory: if someone was lost there, if a program ran away, it could not be found again. Time and space made no sense there, or not the way it mattered for human beings. And Sam choked up once more: his mortal body tensed against the wet sheets. He had been invincible, he thought, he had always felt that he had been holding the world in his arms when he had been with Tron – but now that he had lost him, Sam was going to get old and he was going to die. He could not breathe.

 

  He got a package from the ENCOM. His secretary mailed him all his messages and emails on a disc. Most of it was applications from employees that wished to follow Sam and hoped to get employed by his new company. He slipped the disc in a drawer; he would need it in a few weeks when the new firm would be actually around. There were a few sheets of paper attached: the secretary made a list of the callers with their call back numbers. A name caught his eyes: Flynn was still calling him and leaving his daily messages. Why was he doing that? ENCOM was already being returned to him and Tron was gone: what did he want?

 

  It kept on coming back to him, the _why_. They got everything they wanted: his father, Alan… Sam was curious to see, would Alan be back to ENCOM after the transition. Sam could have made that impossible; he could have filed a lawsuit against Alan Bradley. He had actually considered doing it, if it was considering to sit on his kitchen floor half-drunk, while cursing and crying. They were all leaving him and Sam was strangely fine with that. _If money and power meant more for them_ , he thought, _let them go_. But then, did it? What did his father want?

 

  Sam decided to call him; he could just hang up, should he not like the tone. He did not say anything after his father picked up the phone, yet Flynn figured that it was him, right away.

 

  “I’m happy you called,” said Flynn carefully. Sam did not reply.

 

  “How are you, Sam? I would be really happy if you would stop by one of these days.”

 

  “For what,” he blurted out.

 

  “We could talk.”

 

  “I gave you everything.”

 

  “I didn’t want any of that.”

 

  Sam was silent.

 

  “Why won’t you come by tonight?” his father asked. Sam was thinking for long, very long – if Flynn would not wait for his reply and would hang up, even better, he thought. But his father stayed on the line.

 

  “The ISO can not be there,” said Sam finally.

 

  “It’s not like she is thriving to see you either.”

 

  Sam stayed silent once more.

 

  “Come at seven,” said Flynn. “I will wait for you.”

 

  Sam did not mean to go. He was riding his bike around the hills and stopped at a bench to watch the sunset. Clu would ask, Sam was thinking, sooner or later he would request access to the internet. Sam knew that, even though they had not spoken a word about that. And he could not say no to that request – he did not even want to say no.

 

  Sam got on his bike. He was running late. He started at the hillside house and made a few unnecessary turns on the way. Flynn would be gone, he thought when he stopped the bike, walked to the gate and pushed the button. He had not waited and was gone by now, for a dinner maybe? That was what Sam hoped.

 

  The gate opened. Sam was staring at it for a minute before entering the yard. He saw the lights in the house through the large windows. He walked. He could still turn around and leave, he thought. There were flowers planted on the two sides of the road and he saw a swimming pool in the last lights of the sunset. Sam walked to the door and waited, trying to make himself to knock. He stood there as he had once waited, long hours in the living room of the lakeside house, waiting for the front door to open and his father to come home. Sam turned around and looked at the darkening sky, where the first dots of the stars just appeared. He waited.

 

  Behind him the door opened.

 

 

***

 

  It was the middle of the night. It was dark; outside of the window there were the dark shades of the garden and the ever shining light lines of the city. Kevin Flynn awakened and blinked at the darkness. Nothing moved; usually it was Quorra and her light footsteps from the hall that woke him up at night if she went downstairs for a cup of milk, for his sleep was alert.

 

  Silence. Quorra must have been asleep in her room. She was out for the evening, as always when Sam came by: they were not ready to see each other. It was Lora that drove her home and the sight of the two women together warmed Flynn’s heart. It did happen at the end that the people he loved the most, began to find each other as a family. A family? Maybe, he thought, if for nothing else, then for Quorra and her child.

 

  A few hours earlier Sam and he were sitting in the living room. Sam was in a bad shape, even if there was some improvement since he had first come a few days earlier. He was pale and had lost quite some weight since his days at ENCOM; there were dark circles under his eyes. He looked like a recovering drug addict.

 

  “I’m not going to talk,” said Sam at the first time. And he did not speak, not then and not at the second time. For that it was Flynn that was talking, slowly, carefully at the beginning and easier afterwards. Initially Sam appeared to be very tense, irritated – but he stayed. He wanted to connect, he wanted to forgive; maybe he wanted to be forgiven. It took them quite some time until there was an actual conversation building up between them.

 

  His son had not met Alan Bradley since Alan’s resignation; none of them were trying to make contact.

 

  “I am an old man,” said Alan Bradley, when Flynn asked him. “Give me some time.”

 

  “You are mad at him.”

 

  “Of course I am. But again, I am just a man. So give me time and we will sort it out, this way or another, assuming that he has the intention. Don’t forget, he was going to sue me and it can still happen.”

 

  “It will not happen,” said Flynn.

 

  “We will see.”

 

  Flynn remembered that day: he had stepped down from the stool and put away the gloves and glasses. He was still shaken from the meeting and confused from Tron’s words, afraid of what they could mean.

 

  “He said he was ready,” Flynn told Alan Bradley, and Alan nodded. “What did you tell him? What are you going to do?”

 

  “I told him that he could go.”

 

  “Go? Go where?”

 

  Alan explained him the last conversation between Tron and himself.

 

  “You can’t do that,” said Flynn. “Don’t do this. I can take him home.”

 

  “To put where? On another regular computer? So he can sit in an empty room all day?”

 

  Flynn had no answer.

 

  “This is his best interest,” said Alan. “Let him go.”

 

  Flynn slowly nodded. He asked if he could stay until it was done and Alan agreed. Alan disappeared in his office for an hour and called Flynn inside when he was ready. The device was put away by then, with all the wires folded and the accessories in plastic bags, next to the wall.

 

  “He has his updates now,” said Alan. He went out for the internet cable and connected it to the computer. He was typing rapidly and then looked up at Flynn.

 

  “Should we stay here until..?” he asked.

 

  “Yes,” replied Flynn. They sat down; Alan turned the screen toward them. There was a folder open on the screen, with a single file inside.

 

  “You know,” said Alan. “What would it mean, if he is indeed capable of leaving on his own?”

 

  “Yes. Not a program.”

 

  They were sitting and talking about small things. They kept on glancing at the screen, to see that file in the folder. One minute passed, then another. Alan looked at the screen and he fell silent. Flynn glanced there as well.

 

  Empty folder.

 

  Alan Bradley let out a long sigh, then he rose and murmured something about getting a glass of water, pretending that he did not see Flynn wiping away a single teardrop. A few minutes later Alan came back and they were sitting there for a while before Flynn started to leave.

 

  The dead of the night. Kevin Flynn turned and put his head back on the pillow. Soon there was another day starting with its new challenges; but for now he lay there with a smile on his face as he recalled some old, old memories.

 

***

  Alan Bradley went downstairs. He was wearing a robe above his pajamas; Lora was still sleeping in their bedroom. It was a sunny morning and Alan was awakened by a text message he just received from Roy. The message let him know that Junior had come out from his catatonic state the previous day and was being transported to a rehabilitation facility soon.

 

  “And it begins,” murmured Alan. He would have to inform Kevin Flynn about the news shortly; he was just going to drink a coffee and sort out his thoughts. He should tell Sam about it, it occurred to him – but he had not spoken to the younger Flynn since his resignation. He would have to let Kevin Flynn to take care of that for now. Most importantly, he had to talk to Lora. Alan Bradley had gotten a phone call from his attorney, who had informed him that Kevin Flynn had officially offered all his shares to be transferred to Alan and Lora. Should they accept the offer, they would be the biggest shareholders of ENCOM: during the night Alan had been thinking how to break the news to Lora.

 

  He was filling his cup with water when he glanced up and looked at the garden through the window. The cup slipped out from his hand and fell in the sink.

 

  He was seeing the ocean. For the first time since they had moved in this house, Alan Bradley could see the water from his window. Never in the previous twenty five years could he do that, for the air pollution was too heavy around the city. But something had changed and Alan knew exactly what that had been.

 

  “The ENCOM plug.”

 

  Sam’s invention or the invention of the Grid. Of course there had been reports and analyses about the impact of the device, but this was the first time when Alan Bradley saw it with his own eyes, the dramatic change the device had caused. They were going to save the world, Alan was thinking, the Flynns were going to make it. Again he felt the urge to dial and call Sam; he did not want the boy to face the coming threat alone. Soon, he was telling himself, soon he was talking to Lora and would start making phone calls.

 

  For now he was waiting for the coffee to get ready. His thoughts went back to a conversation a few weeks earlier.

 

  He was standing on the stool with the glasses and the gloves on, for the last time. He had already uploaded the package he had prepared for Tron. Everything that Alan knew about programming was in that update: he gave all the knowledge and efficiency he just could. Yet Tron, who standing in front of him, looked just the same, in his long-sleeved shirt and jeans.

 

  “It’s done,” said Alan Bradley. “Unless you want me to make one more adjustment.”

 

  “What would that be?” asked Tron.

 

  “Nobody can change what happened, but in a sense I probably can. I can delete your related memories.”

 

  Tron looked at him. He was thinking for long and then he shook his head.

 

  “I have memories so I can recognize the same threat when it is coming,” he said. “If you take them away, I won’t know it when something similar would be approaching.”

 

  “That is right.”

 

  “So I will keep them.”

 

  Alan Bradley nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a real note and he was holding it out toward the program.

 

  “What is that?” asked Tron.

 

  “It is an address. Wired Cafe 360. Jingumae 4-32-16, Shibuya. It is in Tokyo, Japan. Once you know your way around out there, you might want to stop at this place. Lora had been given this address during his stay in Japan, following those events I told you about. We believe that it is an invitation, but an invitation for your kind, not us.”

 

  Alan saw that the note disappeared from his hand in the virtual reality. He was still holding the paper in his room and for that he got confused. Then he understood: it indicated that the program received the information. Alan Bradley looked up. There was one last thing that needed to be done; and it needed to be done in a specific way.

 

  “And now I want you to go,” he said. “Go and don’t look back. Don’t try to get in touch with me or Flynn. It might feel safe out there and I wish it would be like that. But don’t forget: if they catch you and you get back to the Grid, nobody will be able to help you.”

 

  Tron stared at him, visibly distracted by the cold tone. The program slowly nodded.

 

  “I understand,” he said. They looked at each other once more. “Thank you.”

 

  “Stay safe,” replied Alan and disconnected the device.

 

  In the kitchen Alan Bradley sat down and took a sip from his coffee. He still felt some regret, a strange sadness about that, the way they parted. But it was something he had to do in order to discourage Tron from trying to stay in contact with him. He was Alan’s creature, but also an entity with own intelligence; he would have stayed, he would have looked after his User, had he not been told differently in an almost hostile way.

 

  Now, that Alan did not have to pretend anymore, he wondered. Did Tron find a world out there, a world he could be part of? Did he go to the address he had been given, was there somebody waiting for him? Was that somebody from the past, was he able to shake the hand of an old friend? And then, would he or any of them see Tron again?

 

  Alan heard that Lora woke up. He put there another cup of coffee. There was one last minute of solitude before she would join him, one more minute before the day would start. Alan filled his own used cup with water and put it in the sink. He looked out the window and watched the silver-blue line of the ocean in the distance. It was for Tron’s own safety that he could not be any kinder with the program, yet after his departure Alan Bradley often felt as if there was somebody around him, watching after him. And Alan Bradley wished that things were different; if he could have talked to Tron in the manner he had really intended. For Alan wanted to tell him once more how proud he was of Tron, that he felt lucky to know him. He wanted to give him advice and encouragement before the coming adventure and ask the program to check back sometimes, to send a word. But then, should there be any contact left, it would have made it easier for them, whoever and whenever they would be going after Tron.

 

  Lora was coming downstairs. Alan Bradley sighed. There were the words on his lips, the terms he had wanted to tell Tron and back then he had forced himself not to. But he did whisper it now, just for himself, in secret.

 

  “Goodbye, kiddo.”

 

 


End file.
